Posted on 01/30/2013 6:00:18 AM PST by Second Amendment First
As the country moves toward the effective start date of the Affordable Care Act in 2014, the operational and economic elements of this vast legislation are becoming clearer. Yet one likely outcome of the act that will directly affect the quality of patient care, and could affect its cost, has gone virtually unnoticed and unreported: the increasing trend for physicians to become employees, rather than self-employed. This development represents a potentially radical factor in the transformation of health care—the doctor as union worker.
Physicians have historically practiced either in small groups or alone. Unlike hospitals, which operate under the rubric of large regulatory agencies, physicians have been much more difficult to regulate and monitor. For cost control to be effective, the professional autonomy and independent clinical judgment of the physician and other providers must in some measure be sacrificed to standardization. This can't be accomplished by overseeing thousands of doctors in thousands of offices and medical complexes, each conducting its own symphony.
The Obama administration, by intent or accident, has effectively driven a major change in the status of physicians. By reducing the reimbursement for certain office-based specialists while enhancing related payment to hospitals, the administration is compelling more and more physicians—many of them with an any-port-in-a-storm fatalism—to seek employment with health systems or large physician groups.
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As has happened in other countries that have charted the course we are now on, a new reason for lack of access may at times be: "Office closed, doctors on strike."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
They are late ti the game. I KNOW this will happen.
Yeah, that’s right. And a little research will tell you why a temporary doctors strike would lower the mortality rate. I’d love to see what would happen in a longer one. I might be willing to strike myself. Sorry, ER is closed, the doctor is on strike....
It will happen. The professional, motivated and intelligent individuals will find other outlets that are more rewarding.
They certainly will not want to work where they are increasingly relying upon others who are not motivated, and are going to be more like other socialized medicine countries doctors: foreign educated, 95% female and affirmative action hires looking for obamabucks.
This female physician is American educated and trained, and I have been practicing for over 25 years. You might want to rethink your categories. And BTW I am looking for a way out thanks to Obamacare. I’m currently trying to figure out what my next career will be, because there is not much future in medicine.
Saw this coming four years ago. Unionized doctors not only means possible strikes, which will be the exception, it will mean lower productivity and less access. Union contracts will focus on better working conditions in lieu of demands for more pay in an era of declining reimbursements.
Doctors remaining in private practice will have no problem attracting new patents in this environment and will do well as long as their margins remain intact. However, if private, and clinic reimbursement becomes untenable, the remaining private practice physicians will either quit, join hospital groups, open self pay/ boutique practices, or some combination of the above. The government’s strategy of over-reimbursing hospitals has its limits because these programs are under major financial constraints to say the least.
I didn’t mean to demean or offend. You are the type of doctor we are unfortunately loosing to retirement.
What I failed to imply is that females are a protected class in this country and affirmative action has forseen consequences.
obamacare has always been about money laundering:
Question: How to get unlimited federal money into dem campaign coffers, every month forever?
By comparison to obamacare Solyndra and associated ‘global warming’ scams was just a side show.
Step #1: create crisis and write legislation so vague that only dem judges will actual have final say on what the definition of is is.
#2: set up process so that the private insurers are eliminated
#3: unionize ALL health care workers, doctors, nurses, everyone down to the janitor.
#4: profit
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