Mississippi board rules 89-year-old Edwards doctor can still make house calls
Posted by gaiagal 9 years ago to Government
An attempt to take away a doctor's medical license for, well...being a doctor. Unfortunately this doctor is old school (really old school) and apparently doesn't understand that in order to practice medicine today it must be done according to rules, regulations, and algorithms - not according to patient need. He also is apparently unaware that he must transmit all patient records to CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid.) Your doctor's Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement rate is affected by his/her EHR (Electronic Health Records) compliance...on ALL patients, even if they have private insurance or pay cash. If your doctor is holding an iPad or entering info into a laptop, your health records are going to the government.
It's all done in the name of safety, of course. It's interesting to see how patient care has changed since the 60s. The patient's medical outcome is now secondary at best.
It's all done in the name of safety, of course. It's interesting to see how patient care has changed since the 60s. The patient's medical outcome is now secondary at best.
SOURCE URL: http://watchdog.org/212449/edwards-doctor/
Far less than secondary.
The goal now is health management, not actual cures. Managing your symptoms keeps you coming back, curing your ailment does not.
When HMOs first appeared on the scene this was the long term consequence.
The 1973 HMO Act is an interesting read. My first thought, when I came across this Act, was why would government become involved with insurance companies- at any level? This Act is about promoting HMOs. Now why would the government want to promote HMOs?
DRG (Diagnostically Related Group) payments for Medicare were ushered in during the late '70s. I was a young, oblivious nurse in those days, I didn't think twice about the DRGs...it wasn't until the early 90s - after extensive career and personal experience - that I realized that medicine was no longer about the patient.
The frightening part is the fact that most people have no idea when their treatment is being withheld or modified. Unless one knows what the treatment should be, how could one possibly know anything is being withheld or modified?
In the last twenty-five years I have seen a number of good, caring doctors gradually morph into employees whose duty is to the medical center that absorbed them, not the patient. It's discomforting to see doctors become people... who just follow orders.
The doctors I have known who have been absorbed into the system are broken by it, but pretty soon they will be replaced by doctors who are comfortable with it. Then things will be even worse for us, the patients.