"Medical errors kill nearly 100,000 American each year, with lethal drug interactions accounting for most of these deaths. Computerization -- which hospitals have been slow to embrace -- was supposed to eliminate most problems, but new research published Wednesday indicates that even the best computer system canât save you from a doctorâs catastrophic screw-up. " full at: http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,67639,00.html?tw=wn_3techhead And Americans have about the highest health care costs in the world yet the results are not nearly the best. Each year my wife and I get health insurance from the THCPA a health care purchasing alliance set up in Texas for small businesses. This is also Bush's answer to the health care crisis to let people join health care purchasing alliances. Yet, it costs more than getting private insurance! Some solution. We're going to get private insurance on our next cycle. Oh-it costs us about a grand a month for crappy coverage. DS
I think you have the wrong culprit in blaming this all on doctors. My father is a retired pediatrician, having practiced for over 30 years. He made $150-200K a year at the height of his earnings, which ended about 2 years ago when he retired. It took him over 10 years to pay off school loans, and this was way back when school was much less expensive. He was rarely home for any holidays because he was always getting calls from people with kid emergencies and having to go into the office or the hospital to deal with it. He was on call at least 1/2 of the time (24 hours a day), was calling people back at 3 AM constantly because their kid had the sniffles or whatever and needed to talk to the doctor NOW. He was personally available to all of his patients on basically a semi-immediate basis for years. The clinic was open for hours of 7-4 during the week, then later added weeknight hours of 7-10 PM, and weekend hours of 9-5 Saturday, 10-4 Sunday. My father was one of only 3 pediatricians available in the neighboring 2 cities ( 40,000 people total ) within a 25 mile radius. The clinic where he was part-owner (24 other doctors) paid approximately 30% of each doctor's salary EACH YEAR for malpractice insurance premiums, despite the fact that not one of the doctors in the clinic was ever sued even once over a period of more than 20 years. 35% of the patients were on state aid, or Medicare and the clinic would wait for reimbursements from the government for upwards of 9-12 months just to get paid back a FRACTION of what it cost to provide the services. Many people would not pay their bills, out-of-pocket portions, etc. at all. The insurance companies would fight constantly to not pay any more than they absolutely had to, which meant whatever they could not fight their way out of over months. The clinic had to hire 10 people just to handle the medical records, insurance filings process, government reimbursements, and paperwork necessary to run everything. And this was a small clinic in a small town. Yes, there are some specialties ( ie plastic surgeons, orthopedic specialists, sports doctors, etc. ) which are probably way overpaid in many cases and some of them treat their profession as a cushy prosperity scheme, but you also should consider how many people are discouraged from even becoming a doctor now because of the malpractice insurance problems, the prohibitive costs of pre-med + medical school, etc. When I was considering a major for college, my father himself told me to not consider becoming a doctor (so I became an engineer instead) because the career path was being ruined by litigation and government regulation. Regarding the treatment options, this is a direct result of insurance and liability considerations. My father would often order tests which he knew were completely unnecessary because if he didn't, then the clinic would be liable if somebody sued later. Also, many of his fellow doctors often suggested nutrition and exercise and common sense remedies, but many times the patients would fail to do anything constructive, so the doctor would resort to medicines as a means of getting some positive changes rather than none. Many times the natural remedies that doctors would like to use are outlawed by the FDA (that is one of the real problems), including natural treatments for cancer, etc. Therefore, they are forced to prescribe FDA-approved drugs rather than attempting to treat things as they may prefer. The few doctors that try to step out of that way of doing things, are immediately shunned by the AMA, and/or open themselves up to liability risk. Just thought you might want to see another point of view on the matter. Believe me, there is definitely a major cost problem, but I think that doctors are not the only (or even the main) cause of it.
I'm in N. Cal and after years of Blue Shield, I have switched over to Kaiser. Far more comprehensive coverage for the money (about $200/mo). They are also opening a huge new facility this month in South Bay which prompted my switch. They have limited states where they are available but if you live where they are an option, it could be worth checking out.
This is completely unfair. First it doesnât take 4 years, it takes multiple of this number to get trained to be qualified to make over million bucks. My brother is a cardiologist, so I know thing or two. As any other thing, medical profession is a commodity. You have to spend time in schools (which are very expensive, most of the doctors start their carrier with debt of 100,000+$), you have to work 12-14 hours a day trough your residency and fellowship (with little time to sleep as youâll be frequently interrupted and while being paid miserably). If the payoff considering all cost (not just monetary, but including opportunity cost) is very high, simple economics will tell you that large number of young people will enroll medical schools. Yet somehow, they prefer law shools or MBAsâ¦. But thatâs another topic.
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