Posted on 06/19/2010 5:04:40 PM PDT by raybbr
Updated 12:15 AM EDT, Sat, Jun 19, 2010
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Laura Wojcik's little girl, Elizabeth, is due Saturday. So imagine her surprise when she learned she'd have to find another doctor for the delivery and find one in just one day.
"I was pretty upset because I love going here and everything. They're good doctors, and then I had to change," said Wojcik.
A doctor from the Norwich OB-GYN Group will be on call this weekend, but inside the office, the waiting room is empty, and there are no doctors in the exam rooms. The office stopped taking patients Thursday when it decided it could no longer meet the financial demands of running the practice.
"We've had a reduction in reimbursement from the state-funded insurances, because the budget situation, things had slowed down, so April, May were very slow, and June continued to be slow," said Bernadette Grecki, the practice administrator.
Add to that the payments from the largest state-funded insurance provider wouldn't be arriving till July, and the office says it had no choice but to close.
"It was too much for the doctor. He realized he couldn't keep funding the practice," said Grecki.
The group says it is working with other OB-GYN's in the area to accommodate patients, and the files of pregnant patients who are at 32 weeks or more have already been transferred to Backus Hospital, so doctors will be prepared when the women go into labor.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcconnecticut.com ...
You’re right, but my doctor has partners; most likely, if they stay in business, they will take over his patients. Nothing against the partners — they’re probasbly ok, but I like this doctor and going to be really pizzed if I have to lose him.
Wonder if there are any pregnant lawyers, or pregnant wives of lawyers in this collection of abruptly abandoned patients?
Maybe your doc will be dumping you soon...or someone close to you.
LOL—thanks for that...
(Don’t miss the penguin animation on this thread. It will cheer you up.)
Bravo. Well said, GB.
Thank you for your kindness.
It’s sad to see how far Willie has degenerated into socialism and class envy. As I’ve said before on other threads, Willie is an FR treasure. Do a keyword search on “boxcarwillie” or “choochoo” and you’ll see what I mean.
Unfortunately, he’s gone off the deep end. At one point, he started dismissing FReepers with pre-2003 sign up dates with the term “Newbie.” In one post, he’s called FReepers “Idiots.” In the next, he chastised them for name calling. Even his formerly brilliant use of sock puppets has deteriorated.
OPM Addiction, it’s an ugly thing.
Sadly, it appears to be a growing social problem.
its all intentional.
bears repeating
Yeah. It's insidious; in fact, a FReeper with a 1998 sign up date posted a comment, on this thread, condemning doctors who earn in the $400K per year range.
That's sounds an awful lot like Obama's statement about how he (Obama) will decide if someone earns "too much money."
We’re going to see a “planetary” practice approach pretty quickly. The physician will be in the center, surrounded by Nurse Practitioners. They’ll do the work up, he’ll drop by to verify and sign the prescriptions. It’ll be a simple, efficient, solution that’ll permit primary care practices to survive with the reduced compensation.
What it won’t be is good medicine.
oh wow.
So - he’s going through all of this, and he still thinks the docs should have their pay cut?
So those people working in his office work for free?
You're union job is going away, buddy.
You're going to have to get a real job soon, or starve.
They will be replaced by foreign doctors, with accents so thick you can cut them with a knife but not understand a word they are saying. The pittance medicare is reimbursing them is probably manna from heaven compared to what they would get in their native third world hell hole.
So what??? What do expect them to do?? Work for the State???
So why is it that none of you bleeding heart pseudo-conservatives noticed that it was your overpaid cardiologist who was sucking the Nanny State's teat???
"We've had a reduction in reimbursement from the state-funded insurances, because the budget situation, things had slowed down, so April, May were very slow, and June continued to be slow," said Bernadette Grecki, the practice administrator.
The good doc bailed out because he's not getting enough of our tax money???
Build infrastructure instead.
At least that way the workers EARN health care benefits instead of throwing billions into the pockets of greedy bleeding-heart welfare pimp doctors.
Agreed. But I won’t slam foreign born doctors — my cardiologist is one and he is outstanding. What I expect is that most of the good doctors will get out of the profession, and the bright minds who would have made good doctors will just figure (rightly so) that the profession just isn’t worth the years of medical school and sacrifice for so little compensation.
I also do see a rise in related fields — such as nurse practitioners. As it is now, in some places, those on Medicaid and other such programs usually are seen by nurse practitioners or others who are not doctors. A real doctor doesn’t get involved unless you’re dying. In time, this will become the norm for everyone. Maybe for a hangnail, none of this will matter. But if you have cancer, heart disease or any of a number of more serious afflictions, you might as well off yourself because you are going to die anyway.
Willie, how much do you believe cardiologists should earn? 100K? 200K? 300K?
How much should train engineers earn?
No, the Nanny State was forcing them to treat patients below cost.
How long would you work if it cost you more to go to work than you earned?
But a person of your obviously deficient IQ only knows one thing: "Gimme gimme gimme!"
That's why you belong to a union.
No disagreement about government interference in medicine is causing rates to go up. For many reasons.
Why is it your socialist salary controlling self never factored in costs of doing business? Expenses? Heard of them?
No, the Nanny State was forcing them to treat patients below cost.
Nobody ever forced him to treat anybody.
He voluntarily chose to stop treating patients because he was too lazy to work for the money that was offered.
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