1) There is a possibility that Abercrombie & Fitch will have its name attached to a pediatric emergency room.
My take: The financial troubles that medical institutions are going through have been well documented. Public hospitals like Grady Memorial and MLK-Harbor are teetering on bankruptcy. Maybe taking corporate money and selling naming rights is the last desperate move financially-strapped hospitals can make.
2) Poor data continues to plague doctor grading programs.
My take: Insurers are using data from captured insurance claims. Any physician can tell you how stunningly inaccurate that source can be. One reason why it’s so difficult to capture data is the lack of a unified electronic medical record system. Until this comes to fruition (good luck), any grading or rating attempt will be fatally frought with errors.
3) It takes eighty 25-minute visits (99214s) for a PCP to make the equivalent of a cardiologist doing five heart catheterizations.
My take: I have previously written that primary care and specialist salaries should be fairly reconciled. Not equalized, mind you. I believe that specialists should indeed be paid more, but the current salary disparity is ridiculous by any measure. Medical students go to where the money is – and it’s not primary care.
