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The current system is nuts
To the Editor: To add to what Dr. Lansdale said, advances in outpatient management and what one can do in “day surgery” have reshaped medicine. Medicine is now more of an outpatient enterprise. Hospitals have contracted to take care of only the sickest. Many things have been lost, including much of the fabric and texture of medicine. There are few of us left who are trained to do primary care, or willing to do it…
…For any provider, it is uneconomic to round on one or two patients. Hospitalists, who are often last year’s residents, try to manage sicker and more complex medical patients, whom they don’t know well. Emergency rooms are overflowing with primary care patients who go there in frustration and for urgent care, since there are not enough primary care physicians. The most expensive place is being used for basic care, and these patients are now seen by less adequately trained mid-level personnel, with reimbursements hugely in excess of what office visits generate…
…Most of us really do know how to practice economically, use resources appropriately, and manage our patients effectively. We are simply not being allowed to do so, or not paid for it when we do. In one word, the current system is nuts.
Before it is too late, and it may already be so, we need to restructure the system. That means rebuilding it around an outpatient model where doctors are paid and really rewarded for performance, and not for how many patients they see in a day…
The current system is nuts
To the Editor: To add to what Dr. Lansdale said, advances in outpatient management and what one can do in “day surgery” have reshaped medicine. Medicine is now more of an outpatient enterprise. Hospitals have contracted to take care of only the sickest. Many things have been lost, including much of the fabric and texture of medicine. There are few of us left who are trained to do primary care, or willing to do it…
…For any provider, it is uneconomic to round on one or two patients. Hospitalists, who are often last year’s residents, try to manage sicker and more complex medical patients, whom they don’t know well. Emergency rooms are overflowing with primary care patients who go there in frustration and for urgent care, since there are not enough primary care physicians. The most expensive place is being used for basic care, and these patients are now seen by less adequately trained mid-level personnel, with reimbursements hugely in excess of what office visits generate…
…Most of us really do know how to practice economically, use resources appropriately, and manage our patients effectively. We are simply not being allowed to do so, or not paid for it when we do. In one word, the current system is nuts.
Before it is too late, and it may already be so, we need to restructure the system. That means rebuilding it around an outpatient model where doctors are paid and really rewarded for performance, and not for how many patients they see in a day…
The current system is nuts
To the Editor: To add to what Dr. Lansdale said, advances in outpatient management and what one can do in “day surgery” have reshaped medicine. Medicine is now more of an outpatient enterprise. Hospitals have contracted to take care of only the sickest. Many things have been lost, including much of the fabric and texture of medicine. There are few of us left who are trained to do primary care, or willing to do it…
…For any provider, it is uneconomic to round on one or two patients. Hospitalists, who are often last year’s residents, try to manage sicker and more complex medical patients, whom they don’t know well. Emergency rooms are overflowing with primary care patients who go there in frustration and for urgent care, since there are not enough primary care physicians. The most expensive place is being used for basic care, and these patients are now seen by less adequately trained mid-level personnel, with reimbursements hugely in excess of what office visits generate…
…Most of us really do know how to practice economically, use resources appropriately, and manage our patients effectively. We are simply not being allowed to do so, or not paid for it when we do. In one word, the current system is nuts.
Before it is too late, and it may already be so, we need to restructure the system. That means rebuilding it around an outpatient model where doctors are paid and really rewarded for performance, and not for how many patients they see in a day…