Monday, August 09, 2004
A doctor speaks out
[Scott E. Maizel, "The health care crunch," The Baltimore Sun, 4 August 2004.]
In this piece, Maryland chapter of the American College of Surgeons president Scott Maizel explains that one of the biggest hurdles to hea;th care reform is overcoming a situation in which patients are trained to behave as though they are in a socialist system, while doctors and hospitals must compete in the capitalist realm:
The fundamental problem is that through decades of dictating reimbursements to the providers, regardless of their costs, and of defining the circumstances in which the services can be delivered, the government and other third-party payers have created in the minds of the public a system of socialized medicine. It is a system in which health care is felt to be an entitlement - expected to be available on demand in a convenient location and free of cost or risk to the consumer.
The flaws in these perceptions are obvious. The first is that though all of us in medicine strive for a good outcome for our patients, this cannot always be achieved. The second is that because providers of health care exist in a capitalist world, ever-increasing expenses must be met if providers are to remain financially viable and in business. Regardless of their competency, the rising cost of malpractice liability insurance is putting doctors out of business.
No other business in America subjected to these realities would be expected to survive. No health care entity - doctor, hospital, nursing home - can exist indefinitely under the current system that dictates reimbursement regardless of the costs incurred to provide the service.
[Scott E. Maizel, "The health care crunch," The Baltimore Sun, 4 August 2004.]
In this piece, Maryland chapter of the American College of Surgeons president Scott Maizel explains that one of the biggest hurdles to hea;th care reform is overcoming a situation in which patients are trained to behave as though they are in a socialist system, while doctors and hospitals must compete in the capitalist realm:
The fundamental problem is that through decades of dictating reimbursements to the providers, regardless of their costs, and of defining the circumstances in which the services can be delivered, the government and other third-party payers have created in the minds of the public a system of socialized medicine. It is a system in which health care is felt to be an entitlement - expected to be available on demand in a convenient location and free of cost or risk to the consumer.
The flaws in these perceptions are obvious. The first is that though all of us in medicine strive for a good outcome for our patients, this cannot always be achieved. The second is that because providers of health care exist in a capitalist world, ever-increasing expenses must be met if providers are to remain financially viable and in business. Regardless of their competency, the rising cost of malpractice liability insurance is putting doctors out of business.
No other business in America subjected to these realities would be expected to survive. No health care entity - doctor, hospital, nursing home - can exist indefinitely under the current system that dictates reimbursement regardless of the costs incurred to provide the service.
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