Half of all doctors would quit if they could

[Chris]

(CNN) -- Nearly half the respondents in a survey of U.S. primary care physicians said that they would seriously consider getting out of the medical business within the next three years if they had an alternative.

Experts say if many physicians stop practicing, it could be devastating to the health care industry.

The survey, released this week by the Physicians' Foundation, which promotes better doctor-patient relationships, sought to find the reasons for an identified exodus among family doctors and internists, widely known as the backbone of the health industry.

A U.S. shortage of 35,000 to 40,000 primary care physicians by 2025 was predicted at last week's American Medical Association annual meeting.

In the survey, the foundation sent questionnaires to more than 150,000 doctors nationwide.

Of the 12,000 respondents, 49 percent said they'd consider leaving medicine. Many said they are overwhelmed with their practices, not because they have too many patients, but because there's too much red tape generated from insurance companies and government agencies.

And if that many physicians stopped practicing, that could be devastating to the health care industry.

"We couldn't survive that," says Dr. Walker Ray, vice president of the Physicians Foundation. "We are only producing in this country a thousand to two thousand primary doctors to replace them. Medical students are not choosing primary care."

Dr. Alan Pocinki has been practicing medicine for 17 years. He began his career around the same time insurance companies were turning to the PPO and HMO models. So he was a little shocked when he began spending more time on paperwork than patients and found he was running a small business, instead of a practice. He says it's frustrating.

Half of primary-care doctors in survey would leave medicine - CNN.com

 

[sparky]

the world will end in paprwork~Zappa....

 

[editec]

The big money isn't in primary care.

One of the benefits of single payer universal health care is most of that paperwork disappears.

Also the government pays more quickly than private insurers according to my physician.

 

[DiamondDave]

OUR government reducing paperwork and acting quickly in it's bureaucracy?? LMFAO... you are so delusional

Our government in this society based on individual liberty and freedom, was not ever set up to be an insurance company... nor should it be

 

[editec]

OUR government reducing paperwork and acting quickly in it's bureaucracy?? LMFAO... you are so delusional

Our government in this society based on individual liberty and freedom, was not ever set up to be an insurance company... nor should it be

Pal, I know you believe anti-government myths, but tell you what...ask your doctor who pays more quickly and who demands more paperwork to get paid -t he private insurance companies he's working with or Medicade.

Get back to me with what he reports, would you?

 

[WillowTree]

Our son is friends with and ER physician, he is leaving because of malpractice insurance, He says he pays 40 cents of every dollar earned for malpractice insurance,, he is going to retrain to Dermatology.

 

[DiamondDave]

Pal, I know you believe anti-government myths, but tell you what...ask your doctor who pays more quickly and who demands more paperwork to get paid -t he private insurance companies he's working with or Medicade.

Get back to me with what he reports, would you?

I'll tell ya what pal... go to a military or VA hospital and check the amount of paperwork, delays, waiting, etc

Also ask some older people on medicaid and medicare how easy that system can be

ignorant, blinded, leftist sycophant

 

[Andrew2382]

I can tell you from working in the Insurance industry

Medicaid paperwork is a debacle, insurance companies paying doctors is a much smoother process as long everything is in order.

 

[Chris]

Doctors in Canada do make less than their US counterparts. But they also have lower overhead, and usually much better working conditions. A few reasons for this:

First, as noted, they don't have to charge higher fees to cover the salary of a full-time staffer to deal with over a hundred different insurers, all of whom are bent on denying care whenever possible. In fact, most Canadian doctors get by quite nicely with just one assistant, who cheerfully handles the phones, mail, scheduling, patient reception, stocking, filing, and billing all by herself in the course of a standard workday.

Second, they don't have to spend several hours every day on the phone cajoling insurance company bean counters into doing the right thing by their patients. My doctor in California worked a 70-hour week: 35 hours seeing patients, and another 35 hours on the phone arguing with insurance companies. My Canadian doctor, on the other hand, works a 35-hour week, period. She files her invoices online, and the vast majority are simply paid -- quietly, quickly, and without hassle. There is no runaround. There are no fights. Appointments aren't interrupted by vexing phone calls. Care is seldom denied (because everybody knows the rules). She gets her checks on time, sees her patients on schedule, takes Thursdays off, and gets home in time for dinner.

One unsurprising side effect of all this is that the doctors I see here are, to a person, more focused, more relaxed, more generous with their time, more up-to-date in their specialties, and overall much less distracted from the real work of doctoring. You don't realize how much stress the American doctor-insurer fights put on the day-to-day quality of care until you see doctors who don't operate under that stress, because they never have to fight those battles at all. Amazingly: they seem to enjoy their jobs.

Third: The average American medical student graduates $140,000 in hock. The average Canadian doctor's debt is roughly half that.

Finally, Canadian doctors pay lower malpractice insurance fees. When paying for health care constitutes a one of a family's major expenses, expectations tend to run very high. A doctor's mistake not only damages the body; it may very well throw a middle-class family permanently into the ranks of the working poor, and render the victim uninsurable for life. With so much at stake, it's no wonder people are quick to rush to court for redress.

Canadians are far less likely to sue in the first place, since they're not having to absorb devastating financial losses in addition to any physical losses when something goes awry. The cost of the damaging treatment will be covered. So will the cost of fixing it. And, no matter what happens, the victim will remain insured for life. When lawsuits do occur, the awards don't have to include coverage for future medical costs, which reduces the insurance company's liability.

Mythbusting Canadian Health Care -- Part I | OurFuture.org

 

[doeton]

praise be to obama

bring on the universal health care my brother.

 

[Chris]

praise be to obama

bring on the universal health care my brother.

We already have universal health care, just a really bad version of it.

What we need is a single payer system.

 

[doeton]

We already have universal health care, just a really bad version of it.What we need is a single payer system.

hokie dokie...