Hospitals are starting to get it in the wake of Tuscon’s ER crisis. To get specialists to take call, they are opening up their pocketbooks. It’s about time that physicians take charge of their profession:
In Tucson, paying a single specialist to cover the ER can cost up to $1,000 a night. Hospital CEOs estimate paying for adequate specialty coverage “” neurosurgeons, orthopedic surgeons, hand surgeons, vascular surgeons, general surgeons, gastroenterologists, and ear, nose and throat doctors “” is going to cost them $1 million to $3 million a year. With total hospital revenue margins running at only about $5 million to $6 million, in a good year, that’s a huge “” and likely unsustainable “” hit on the bottom line.
(via a reader tip)
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{ 4 comments }
I understand that availability for “house Call” whether in a specialty or as a primary care doc can be onerous. In my small town the local family docs take “house call”. In an 8 doc rotation you can bet when your turn comes up you will need to admit an uninsured alcoholic or a transient off his psych meds. This is the role of doctors. It seems that the burden is becoming too much for some. We (local family docs)never got paid by the hospital for taking House call for admissions. Should we have? Is that where “fair” lies? It is hard for me to see surgical specialists get $1K/night doing essentially what I do for free.
But I have made this comment before and been chided for “attacking ourselves”, like we’re all in this together. It doesn’t really feel that way, to me, that we(physicians) are really sharing a goal of providing good care, improving the health of the community. Instead, I think we have sunk to the accepted denominator of, “What’s in it for me?”, the american anthem. And maybe docs against hospitals is where the battle line is drawn. Us vs. them…Noble profession.
Not much of a shock here. When the supply is curtailed to the degree that it has been, this is what we get. I think that this is a situation where the situation needs to fold completely before we get some real reform (redistributing more money to the providers that have strangled supply for decades coupled with collusion with the government is not the answer).
Asking a surgical specialist to operate on an uninsured and usually angry ER patient ()who is more likely to sue for nothing is unreasonable. It is not worth the $1000.00 call fee. I would rather have the hospital pay my malpractice insurance.
Why not use CareScope, a comprehensive software program that deals with the under and non-insured? In hospitals that have implemented our program they have seen a 42% reduction in innapropiate ER visits. Want to know how? E-mail me for more info.
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