Sedated Hospital Owned Physician Enjoys On The Job Company Perks
CMS advertises that cutting physician payment for care increases access to care – laughable.
By Bill Hennessey M.D.
I guarantee you this is hospital lobbyists at play. The play is to keep cutting physician pay at least 2% every year since the ACA with physician cuts totaling about 25% by Medicare since the ACA of 2010. The play is to force physicians to be employed by hospitals – a very strong financial conflict of interest and strong conflict of interest for doctor-patient relationship.
I cannot believe that the government thinks that we are so stupid that cutting physician pay will increase physician access to care. It is exactly the opposite! If I was to be in private practice today at the extreme pay cut for Medicare payment for patient care, I would not be seeing any Medicare patients. I would require, the elderly to pay cash for office visits.
After all, a doctor visit really is not insurance. A doctor visit costs less than a plumber or electrician. Insurance is for a financial catastrophe. You private practice physicians out there, do not let the hospitals employ you. This is what they want and then they lobby the government so that the hospital- employed physicians cost three times as much as those in private practice. The money grab and financial extortion with profit over patient continues.
FROM A PHYSICIAN
There’s a lot of bureaucratic gobbledygook in CMS’s attached statements, which they repeat several times, I guess, to reinforce their points, but the take home is they’re going to reduce the conversion factor by 3%. And with a primary care physician shortage expected to be around 100,000 by 2028, this helps how????
This is what you get with government run medical care. Bureaucrats have no clue how the real markets work. We currently have an inefficient healthcare system, but at least there are niche private practice places where some physicians can make enough money to reward them for the many years of sacrifice they undertake to get to where they are. The lowered reimbursements will simply lead to less people applying to medical schools, dumbing down the quality of the guy or gal who sees you when you have a heart attack at 3 AM.
Who would spend 4 years in medical school and 5 years becoming a cardiovascular surgeon when CMS pays you $1500 for a high risk emergency bypass procedure at 3 AM? That risk/reward doesn’t work.
I took my car to the dealership this past week (OK, it’s a Mercedes dealership), and they want $890 for an oil change and routine service. When questioned about it, they said they were cheaper than the competing dealership across town who was charging over $300/hour for their mechanics. There isn’t a physician in our urgent care practice that ever made $300/hour.
Things are upside down.
