April 4, 2014
MARCH 26, 2014 – Growing up, Erin Havel’s family saw one family physician. That doctor gave her mom medical care when she was pregnant, delivered her when she was born, gave school shots, wrote prescriptions for any virus that came up, and helped her grandparents with geriatric care. This was well-rounded family care at its a finest.
However, things changed when her doctor retired. Patients were transferred to a new doctor, with his eyes on the dollar sign.
March 14, 2014
We all know insurance companies like to insert themselves into just about every aspect of health care. Many insurance plans make you go to an approved doctor at an approved hospital for approved procedures and take approved drugs. Fee-for-service docs don’t have much say here. They’ve handed all this control to insurance companies and the insurance companies use it, they say, to control their own costs. But is that all they use it for?
October 21, 2013
Thanks to @jsgoldmd20 who linked us to a relevant Huff Post story. Ann Brenoff’s “The Doctor Will See You … When Her Boss Says She Can” documents her experience with an overly commodified fee-for-service doctor. It’s not the same old story, of long waiting rooms, harried visits, obscene fees, and dodgy insurance claims… Well, it does have the long waiting room, but for a different reason: Brenoff’s doctor refuses to spend less than 30 minutes with her patients, even when the company she works for demands she book appointments every 10-15 minutes.
The problem, though, is that patients back up in the waiting room. Even when her appointments are booked four weeks in advance, Ann Brenoff is forced to wait over an hour to see her doctor. Recently she got fed up and tried to take her business elsewhere. Her time was too valuable. She couldn’t be made to wait.
July 30, 2013
And another doctor adopting “direct care” has gained mainstream media attention. Dr. Juliette Madrigal-Dersch is a physician in Marble Falls, Texas. She’s joined a growing number of doctors who choose to not accept payment from Medicare, Medicaid and private-insurance networks. The Wall Street Journal broke the story, saying, “Fewer American doctors are treating patients enrolled in the Medicare health program for seniors, reflecting frustration with its payment rates and pushback against mounting rules, according to health experts.” According to their research the number of doctors who opted out of Medicare last year, while still a small proportion of the nation’s health professionals, nearly tripled from three years earlier.
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