She writes:
I’m disgusted. We train our best students to be doctors, and look what we get: a bunch of spoiled doctors squabbling over cosmetic surgery like kids over the last cookie.Wake up! Some 16 percent of Americans don’t have health insurance, and numerous health disparities face our population. Working with underserved populations isn’t as glamorous as Botox, but it will do a lot more good.
Her anger is misplaced. Perhaps she should lobby against the bias Medicare and the payers have against primary care and working in underserved areas.
Related posts:
- Medicine in rural areas: "It’s like serving jail time"
- Retail clinic growing pains
- Studies of the obvious: It’s easier to get a dermatologist for cosmetic procedures
- The primary care signing bonus
- Politicians and cosmetic procedures
- Reader letters: The primary care crisis – don’t take my word for it
- Too many doctors?
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{ 3 comments }
When it comes to increased bureaucracy and lowered reimbursements, telling doctors to “suck it up” will not solve the problem. The insurance companies are primarily concerned with keeping the shareholders happy with increased earnings. If physicians collectively decide to take the hit financially out of the goodness of their hearts, the insurance companies will just lower reimbursements further. This ultimately hurts everyone when the new generation of doctors decides they aren’t going to keep “sucking it up.” They will avoid the worst paying specialties and go into those that are higher paying such as cosmetic medicine as this article states. Since insurance companies don’t listen to doctors, reducing physician supply below below demand in underpaid specialties is the only true way to bring change.
Why is this the doctors concern? Cosmetic surgery is the only class of surgery patients are willing to pay well to have without expecting services to be paid by a third party at a significant discount and in arrears. For some practices, it is one of the few services that earns its keep, as revenue generation goes.
Consider this, the positive cash flow from these services is one of the few activities keeping the doors open to patients whose poorly reimbursing coverage, like Medicaid and some HMOs, makes them money losing services and drains on a practice’s finances.
Would this same reader be willing to pay more for her services as an alternative?
Yeah I agree that cosmetci medicine is one of the affordable solution in changing yourself. I guess a lot of people may realize that now. Cosmetic Medicine is most a besr and fastest way of making yourself attractive.
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