Patients in Florida Lining Up for All That Medicare Covers

The New York Times ^ | September 13, 2003 | GINA KOLATA

[JoeSixPack1]

Leave it to the NYSlimes to use Boca Raton, Fl for an article on Medicare pitfalls and excesses.

That's like using Beverly Hills, Ca to complain about the average weekly salary of an immigrant landscaper.

[At _War_With_Liberals]

Excellent article.

[Moonman62]

Leave it to the NYSlimes to use Boca Raton, Fl for an article on Medicare pitfalls and excesses.

I don't get your point. This article is slamming Medicare and it's coming from the Slimes. (How often does that happen?) Boca just happens to be the place where there is the most waste.

[dawn53]

Thanks for the post.

This article is soooo true.

My elderly mother-in-law lives with us and I can't even count the doctor's she sees. Some weeks she see's a doctor every day. And guess what, she's 84 and healthy as a horse.

Then there's the tests. The ECG showed her heart was strong, but "then why does my heart skip beats sometimes", she asks the doctor. A nuclear scan, stress test, and holter monitor test are done and surprise, same answer, your heart is fine, just one of those things.

Then there's the meds. She takes a plethora of pills. Each time she complains of something to a doc they hand her a prescription. Then after taking handfuls of pills wonders why she might be lightheaded. We suggest it's the medication, but the doc says, "Here's a prescription for rehab to help you with the wooziness." So add rehad and physical therapy to the list of what Medicare is paying for.

I blame the patients for seeking the fountain of youth and thinking they're supposed to feel like they're 20 when they're 84. I blame the doctors because they don't just look them in the eye and say "these things happen as you age" or just say "no" to a useless test. I blame the system for not putting any responsibility on the patient or the doctor to curtail the costs.

[tkathy]

I read a similar article some years back about free health care in Canada. Seniors planned their whole day around doctor's appointments with a variety of imaginary ailments.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[JoeSixPack1]

They're slamming medicare by exposing how doctors shuffle patients to scam the system and calling it patient waste?

In Boca a family practitioner usually only sees patient 2-4 hours a day and 90% of those visits are usually consultations to move a patient out to the next doctor in a chain of specialists.

After five days of doctor visits to five different doctors one of them finally treats the problem. So who's wasting what?

[Conservative Kay]

This is true in central Florida, also. I was shocked at the number of specialist my mother & father-in-law saw for routine ailments. My mother-in-law thought she had to see a specialist for a kidney infection! They, like the people in the story, had multible doctor appointments a week. This article hit's it on the head about "free" service and the abuse of the system.

Medicare seems to have nothing in place to prevent this abuse or outright fraud. My mother-in-law has been in Ohio for 4 yrs. now and Medicare still gets a bill from a place in Florida for yearly service on her wheelchair. When I called Medicare about this and told them it was impossible for this to be a true claim they said the store had a right to charge a yearly fee for maintiance fee. I couldn't get them to understand that this service was not done. National heath care, anyone?

[JoeSixPack1]

This article paints the patient as the bad guy. That's not the case.

[Mr. Bird]

This article paints the patient as the bad guy. That's not the case.

You're right. The patient is behaving precisely the way economics dictates they would behave. Until the patient is given some sort of financial responsibility for their care, they will continue to soak the system. The first place to start is to charge them for "routine" visits.

It is preposterous to think that an ambulatory senior needs to see several doctors per week. Seeking an MRI for shoulder pain? Please. The bottom line is that while these patients aren't "bad" people, their behavior is costing all of us a fortune.

[Jim Noble]

This is a great article, from a surprising source (Gina Kolata may be so dumb that she does not understand what her article is communicating).

We evolved a system of office-based primary care by 1965 that was the envy of the world.

Those who voted against Medicare predicted that it would destroy our system.

They were correct.

The politicians responsible will now get what they want-nationalized doctors and hospitals-but the system they started out to take over is gone.

Dr. Welby has left the building.

[RippleFire]

bump

[Piquaboy]

Make it free and they will come. That is the reason Mediscare cost is going through the roof.

[JoeSixPack1]

Seeking an MRI for shoulder pain?

How can a patient prescribe themselves an MRI?

[Mr. Bird]

When there's no control on utilization, it's just the path of least resistance. If a patient says, `My shoulder hurts, I want an M.R.I., I want to see a shoulder specialist,' the path of least resistance is to send them off. You have nothing to gain by refusing."

By raising the question of how a patient prescribes themselves, you have illustrated the point. Diagnostic evaluations and surgical procedures paid for by the public should not be granted on the whim of the patient. Mere shoulder pain in an elderly individual is not cause for an MRI. And if you must know, there is currently huge stresses on imaging departments trying to accommodate the people who actually need MRI's. Some old codger with his arthritis acting up is consuming a finite resource: time in the scanner.

Patients on the dole should have some restraints on them.

[JoeSixPack1]

Also agreed. Once medicare began dictating prices, the scamming started. Everybody loses.

But I won't fault the patients for being forced to become lemmings.

[JoeSixPack1]

Patients on the dole should have some restraints on them.

Patients on the dole????? The doctors shove them around between offices, agree to their requests, charge medicare, split payments with the referred office, overwrite copays so patients return more often, double bill for clinical work and you're saying the patient is on the dole?

The dole for what? Medical care?

[chainsaw]

Seeking an MRI for shoulder pain?

How can a patient prescribe themselves an MRI?

Some doctors will prescribe the MRI referral to justify their fee for the exam.

Also the MRI is probably performed at the hospital where the doctor has privileges, keeping him in good standing as a hospital supporter. This is more true in an HMO.

[JoeSixPack1]

Some doctors will prescribe the MRI referral to justify their fee for the exam.

Exactly!