patrick.net

Christ Almighty, what's behind this obsession?

Did your wife run off with a doctor? A young, hard-bodied, former Olympic gymnast and part-time race car driver of a doctor who is giving her turbocharged orgasms?

There's also the dichotomy between reality and the pedestal society places doctors on, as if they are some sort of demi-god.

Smart people for sure, but not geniuses.

When I see Doctors living in my modest neighborhood, and driving a used car with a color that no one in their right mind would have chose as a new car. But for the price as the used car, it was OK.

When I bump into a Cardiologist at Save-a-Lot...
When I see a Doctor pushing his out gas car the final block to the gas pump...
When I see a Doctor at the Check Cashing store window graveling with the clerk to turn his lights back on, and asking if he can pay "Part of it" to do so...

Then I'll start to feel sorry for them.

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

How do I get this pitch fork out of my back?

Thanks, Obamacare!

You/ve only got 1 pitchfork in your back. Lucky bastard.

CaptainShuddup says

When I see Doctors living in my modest neighborhood, and driving a used car with a color that no one in their right mind would have chose as a new car. But for the price as the used car, it was OK.

When I bump into a Cardiologist at Save-a-Lot...

When I see a Doctor pushing his out gas car the final block to the gas pump...

When I see a Doctor at the Check Cashing store window graveling with the clerk to turn his lights back on, and asking if he can pay "Part of it" to do so...

Then I'll start to feel sorry for them.

Doctors, and everyone else for that matter, have zero concern for the captians sympathy.

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

How do I get this pitch fork out of my back?

Thanks, Obamacare!

You would need a doctor. Hope you have insurance.

bob2356 says

"Just processing the insurance forms costs $58 for every patient encounter". Having written software for medical billing I think that number may be actually low. I'm sure the University of Maryland Medical Center is much more efficient at insurance billing than most private doctors offices that I've been in.

It costs $58 per patient to bill the insurance company. Therein is one of the primary reasons health care in the US costs so much. The others being obscene phama profits in the US and corporate for profit hospitals (which really didn't exist prior to the 80's). Note that the ACA doesn't address any of these three issues. That's $58 on the doctors office end. No has any idea what the cost is on the insurance company end since insurance companies don't share that information. It's very likely to be even more than $58. So at least $100 dollars per doctor visit goes to just shuffling paper for the insurance companies to make a profit for their shareholders. Which is why around the globe health care costs less than half of US helath care. When I go into a doctors office overseas there is a doctor, sometimes a nurse, and a receptionist. The medical billing staff doesn't exist. Billion dollar health insurance companies paid for by the patients don't exists either.

Which is why Obamacare is totally a joke. The Obama administration doesn't have any idea what it actually costs to run the health insurance system either, yet wrote massive legistlation that affects every man, women and child which basically just puts even more money into the insurance billing system. Insurance billing of course has nothing at all to do with health care at all, it's just shuffling paper not treating patients.

Iosef V HydroCabron says

Christ Almighty, what's behind this obsession?

Did your wife run off with a doctor? A young, hard-bodied, former Olympic gymnast and part-time race car driver of a doctor who is giving her turbocharged orgasms?

I know, right?

Why can't this ASSHOLE! Just fall in line and poke fun at Benghazi and the stupid republicans, and give ppaca some time to show its worth. I mean, it has Obamas name on it, so it good! Lmao @ sarah palin lol.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/52vK2-Dv1TA

http://www.businessinsider.com/most-suicidal-occupations-2011-10?op=1

This list of 19 includes many different professions that are more likely to commit suicide than - well, than other professions. Realtors? Who'd a thunk it?

http://thinkingaboutsuicide.com/occupations-highest-suicide-ratess/

“Several studies indicate occupations most marked by suicides include physicians, temporary workers, farmers, miners, writers, artists, active-duty military, veterans and male nurses.”

I even read the linked article, which does indeed contain the quotes that the poster chose. He/she didn't add the part that says the ACA "might" create a problem - but of course, his/her object was to find a way to blame "Obama care" for all of life's ills.

I'm sorry to be such a bummer, but all of the stats are from before the ACA took effect in January of this year... so there's really no way to tell whether physicians want to kill themselves as a result of Affordable Healthcare.

I, however, do want to kill myself every time I read another one of his insufferable posts about how awful the ACA is. So - there's one healthcare worker down. GOOD JOB!

elliemae says

I, however, do want to kill myself....

Quick, run out and buy some toxic SSRI placebos! Oh wait, first get an Rx to shift the cost onto your neighbors, then play the Russian Roulette game of pharmacists decanting pills by hand into anonymous bottles; if you're lucky, they might give you something better.

Postdocs earn some $38K-$42K per year. They have no guarantee of future work.

Thus, there are enough ppl out there, with the proper graduate level knowledge base, who earn a lot less than the avg $200K physician.

So if MDs want to quit, the answer is to laterally slide all the postdocs and adjuncts, into a pre-residency program so that they could sit for the USMLE, before starting a residency program. Heck, even residents earn $45K and unlike postdocs, there's a six figure rainbow at the end of that dark cloud.

Rin says

So if MDs want to quit, the answer is....

If that's the answer, then you're assuming the wrong question. The question should be, how many of the visits that most doctors spend most of their time on, are even necessary or useful? How many are due to ppl running into the doctor's office for permission to buy a toxic placebo they saw advertised on TV, and shift the cost onto everyone else via mandatory subsidized insurance? How much of the current work schedule goes to treating nosocomial infections transmitted by revenue-maximizing hospital corporations under the fee-for-service model? Eliminate the artificial demand, and the remaining clinicians will have more than enough time on their hands. The postdocs and anyone else interested in research should be doing something useful, like finding actual cures, rather than pushing toxic placebos on the insurance treadmill.

curious2 says

Eliminate the artificial demand, and the remaining clinicians will have more than enough time on their hands. The postdocs and anyone else interested in research should be doing something useful, like finding actual cures, rather than pushing toxic placebos on the insurance treadmill.

Well, what you're talking about is a different society than the one we're living in. Here, it's about the monetization of everything. Thus, doctors have to push Rx, consulting fees, procedures, etc. In a sense, it's not too different from management consultants for corporate America.

As for researchers, well, they need to chase grant money which once again, brings in either the private sector monied interests or the govt ones, who're easily swayed by private interests. Most R&D in some way, will have a bread crumb trail, going back to defense or pharma.

Doctors are in a brutal profession. I have no doubt few would recommend the profession to others. People outside of the profession really have no idea how nasty it is. The pay isn't great, doctors live in constant fear of being sued for a less-than-ideal outcome, and their entire practice is dictated by insurance contracts. But these are things I'm sure you've heard before.

What you might not have heard before is how horrible medical professionals are to each other. My personal favorite is Sham Peer Review. It's a most disgusting abuse of power. I know for a fact that there are doctors who were victims of sham peer review that committed suicide.

Hospitals have a designated team of medical providers who are charged with peer review. Whenever there is a less than ideal outcome, the peer review committee is responsible for reviewing the case. Or, if let's say you have an OB who is performing more c-sections than one might expect, the peer review committee would review his cases over a period of time to see if the procedures were warranted. The purpose is to improve performance and give hospitals a way to get rid of a doctor who, let's say, showed up drunk to perform surgery.

As a way to protect the reviewers, the hospital, and patient privacy, the federal government protects this process as privileged. So, if a peer review committee decides that you aren't a good doctor, they can revoke your hospital privileges and have your status reflected on the National Practitioner Databank so that future employers are aware that you lost your privileges somewhere.

Here's the best part of all. Because the whole process is federally protected, you might never even learn what the charges are! There is no due process in peer review. They don't have to tell you anything (many do, but they don't have to). Since you don't know why they got rid of you, it's virtually impossible to fight back. Since the file is federally protected, you will have a snowball's chance in Hell of getting a copy of it.

For all these reasons, peer review is a grossly abused process. I know a doctor who was operating a thriving practice in a very small town. The hospital decided to go into competition with the guy. Since the guy had all the business, they needed to get rid of the guy (he refused to be employed by the hospital). So, the hospital took away his privileges at the hospital claiming that they had "peer review" concerns about his proficiency (he had a spotless malpractice record, btw). The hospital gave the doctor the option of resigning his privileges or his privileges would be revoked and his status would be listed on the Databank. He immediately called a lawyer, of course. The lawyer told him that his best bet was to resign and start fresh somewhere else... He advised the doctor to avoid the Databank at all costs.

For the very few who've been able to, rectifying the situation takes many years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. Furthermore, you will be difficult to employ while the case is pending. Those who have the guts to fight it, typically lose because the information they need to prove their case is PRIVILEGED. Most can't afford to pursue it. I can see how death might start looking preferable.

turtledove says

The hospital decided to go into competition with the guy. Since the guy had all the business, they needed to get rid of the guy (he refused to be employed by the hospital).

Hospitals have taken over SF, and are now the city's largest industry. 20 years ago, more than 70% of doctors practiced on their own or in small practice groups that they co-owned; today, more than 70% are employees of large corporations or government. Obamneycare enriched the hospital executives tremendously, they're getting lavish payouts selling their hospitals to insurance companies so the insurers can bypass the MLR rules. For thoroughly documented reporting on the hospital executives' mentality, I highly recommend reading The Good Nurse. A serial killer was employed as a nurse by a series of hospitals, who made so much money as a result that they never reported him; executives even lied to police to cover up his crimes, until eventually two cops figured it out. He was convicted on dozens of counts of murder, but there were probably hundreds, and he's not the only practitioner who turned out to be a serial killer and eventually got convicted of murder. What gets me is that literally 100% of the hospital executives, at every hospital that employed him, covered it up and enabled him to move on to another hospital. There were no exceptions. People talk about the Catholic church covering up child molesters, but 100% of hospital executives who figured out the Cullen case decided to cover up and enable a serial killer. And for that, they were never punished, in fact they have been rewarded.

Who cares really what doctors do, don't do, how much it costs them to bill insurances. Who cares? If they don't want to be doctors they don't have to. They can go pick tomatoes or grapes or grow vegetable or become fishermen. Who the hell cares if they commit suicide? Let them. It is shameful to make all the money they make and complain. Poor doctors! I feel so sorry for them! Stupid article.

Francis says

Who cares?

I care. Doctors get blamed for Obamneycare, but most doctors opposed it. The political patronage networks wrote the legislation conscripting everyone into Obamneycare, and sent doctors onto the front lines, despite the opposition of most Americans including most doctors.