Posted on 01/05/2012 9:43:56 PM PST by Nachum
New York - Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke. This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists. Industry watchers say the trend is worrisome. Half of all doctors in the nation operate a private practice. So if a cash crunch forces the death of an independent practice, it robs a community of a vital health care resource. (Snip) Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
The simple truth is that for about the last 50 years, the medical profession has been involved in the business of providing services to patients who cannot afford to pay for these services. It's really that simple. Very few people can really afford to pay for MRIs, CAT scans, hip replacements, bypass surgery, and all those procedures that have become so routine in our lifetimes.
What's changed now is that the entities that really have been paying for these things all these years (insurance companies and the taxpayers) are now in a position where they can't afford to pay for them anymore, either.
The success of any business is always tied to the ability of its customers to pay for the products or services it sells.
Welcome to reality, Doctor.
...”Also, nurses and technicians will be certified for most procedures now reserved for doctors”...
This will work for a short time but the quality will be short lived..The golden age of medicine is past and we will return to a situation of letting nature take it’s course. Goodby longevity..Hello, mourning, except for the rich..They will hold out a bit longer with their ability to travel the world..However, the halt in better medicine and the lack of skilled and knowledgeable doctors will soon take it’s toll on everyone. Fascism and communism never works and it will not work this time either. At least a few people in the history of the world had insight into how to be free and still keep the peace, but the envious among us were too committed and too strong. They used their charismatic members to charm us and steal our “city on a hill.” The cruel and the violent will inherit this nation if things are not turned around.
I know these are human beings who have put a lot of time and effort into their careers and are small businessmen who are the backbone of this economy, but does it really make sense to mourn the tribulations of an industry that has come to rely so heavily on massive government programs (Medicare and Medicaid) that never should have existed in the first place?
Veterinary medicine is the way to go!!!
Pet owners willingly pay $$$$$ up front - no questions asked - to treat their cats and dogs.
Even with ‘pet insurance’ the costs for care and medicine are astounding. More expensive than ‘people’ doctor’s visits.
Cut the number of physicians by 75 to 80% and guess what..., health care costs plummet. Nobody gets it, and nobody bills for it. This is the ObamaCare game plan.
Those nasty medical centers are making too much money. Those pharmacies are making too much money. Those physicians are making too much money. This is what Obama and their ilk think.
Every time government people have talked about fixing health care, they talk about health care providers having to accept less in payment, to make it work.
These entities have been under extreme pressure for several decades now. There is no more squeezing to be done.
Either we want a health care system for the nation, or we don’t. You can’t reduce payments to zero and resolve the issue. If you want service, the service providers need to make money.
Ah the miracles of socialism... destroy what works, and force everyone to do without.
I hear ya Duke, BUT:
Why, WHY, would someone want to start a business today and struggle to feed a monster, risk your own monies, just to have the scraps left over?
FedGov is devouring the country and we keep ‘helping’ it by feeding it, struggling, somehow making ends meet for one more month.
It really looks like the time is ripe to stop being the victims and a la Atals Shrugged, just stop, let the thing grind to a halt.
I agree. I and my peer group are doing well from SS and Medicare -— we are probably the last age group to do so!
DB and others should stop making false statements that degrade the credibility of FR
In Sweden, the typical salary of a GP is around 65k a year.
That’s just it isn’t it?
In a regular ponzi scheme - those at the bottom of the pyramid understand the money is “gone”.
They are lucky to recover any small amount - and understand they will never get back the amount they put in.
This message hasn’t transferred over to everyone’s understanding of the ponzi scheme that is social security.
People just aren’t going to get back what they “put in”
It is mathematically impossible.
If they persist on demanding it - the next generation will be bankrupt.
"I grew up in that system. I was spending $1.5 million a month on buying treatment drugs," he said. In 2005, Medicare revised the reimbursement guidelines for cancer drugs, which effectively made reimbursements for many expensive cancer drugs fall to less than the actual cost of the drugs.
Perhaps Obamcare is to blame, but in this particular example, the doctor did what many investors and speculators do in the financial markets every day: He played the futures market and lost.
There is another source of the problem....... change.
Just as we no longer have house calls, except for Hank-med of course, the ability of a single office of one or maybe three physicians to compete at a profitable level is going away or even gone.
Amalgamation into a group with many resources and abilities is the way. Even when Obama care is abolished, it will be replaced with some national system that includes medicare and the medicaid functions. The electronic assembly of all medical records is coming everywhere as well. An office that doesn’t participate or can’t participate will be at a severe disadvantage.
How’s that joke go? What do you call the person who graduates last in his class a medical school? Doctor.
We are already there. When I have a position to hire, about 80% of the docs available for interview are foreign medical grads. And that is after my recruiter has weeded down the list American medical graduates are for the most part going into a few lucrative subspecialties ( when you graduate deeply in debt you cannot choose a practice that will barely hang on because of Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates and.govt regulation). 25 years ago when I graduated the brightest of the bright vied for places in internal medicine residencies. Now we are lucky if we can find american educated internists to hire - and that is for hospital physicians. The number and caliber of those going into primary care is far worse. The medical system is in big trouble -— Obama care may be the final nail in the coffin. Get ready to get your care from docs who do not speak English well— or from their nurses and PAs as the doc wil
L be stretched to thin to actually see you...... / rant off.
We are already there. When I have a position to hire, about 80% of the docs available for interview are foreign medical grads. And that is after my recruiter has weeded down the list American medical graduates are for the most part going into a few lucrative subspecialties ( when you graduate deeply in debt you cannot choose a practice that will barely hang on because of Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates and.govt regulation). 25 years ago when I graduated the brightest of the bright vied for places in internal medicine residencies. Now we are lucky if we can find american educated internists to hire - and that is for hospital physicians. The number and caliber of those going into primary care is far worse. The medical system is in big trouble -— Obama care may be the final nail in the coffin. Get ready to get your care from docs who do not speak English well— or from their nurses and PAs as the doc wil
L be stretched to thin to actually see you...... / rant off.
We are already there. When I have a position to hire, about 80% of the docs available for interview are foreign medical grads. And that is after my recruiter has weeded down the list American medical graduates are for the most part going into a few lucrative subspecialties ( when you graduate deeply in debt you cannot choose a practice that will barely hang on because of Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rates and.govt regulation). 25 years ago when I graduated the brightest of the bright vied for places in internal medicine residencies. Now we are lucky if we can find american educated internists to hire - and that is for hospital physicians. The number and caliber of those going into primary care is far worse. The medical system is in big trouble -— Obama care may be the final nail in the coffin. Get ready to get your care from docs who do not speak English well— or from their nurses and PAs as the doc wil
L be stretched to thin to actually see you...... / rant off.
Good points. Another great service industry to get started in is tatoo removal.
Currently I collect about 1/3 of what I bill. Medicare and insurance companies pay what they wish, and refuse to pay market rates. Wish I could go into home depot and tell them I will pay 1/3 of the cost of new carpeting!
And when I graduated the last person in the class was of high enough caliber and training to earn the title doctor and provide quality care for their patients. Not sure what the situation is now
-——I collect about 1/3 of what I bill——
Interesting.
Does the unpaid 2/3 become “bad debt” on your books/tax return?
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