Skip to content
  • About
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Book
  • Careers
  • Podcast
  • Recommended
  • Speaking
  • All
  • Physician
  • Practice
  • Policy
  • Finance
  • Conditions
  • .edu
  • Patient
  • Meds
  • Tech
  • Social
  • Video
    • All
    • Physician
    • Practice
    • Policy
    • Finance
    • Conditions
    • .edu
    • Patient
    • Meds
    • Tech
    • Social
    • Video
    • About
    • Contact
    • Contribute
    • Book
    • Careers
    • Podcast
    • Recommended
    • Speaking

This doctor is on a mission to take back medicine

Rocky Bilhartz, MD
Policy
August 25, 2015
6K Shares
Share
Tweet
Share

growth-in-administrators_opt

I’m taking back medicine.

If you didn’t know it left or that someone stole it, I’ll give you a pass. Medicine has been disguised for a long time now. And, when you leave the scene in camouflage, you often go unnoticed.

Medicine is supposed to be the science or practice of diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease. I love medicine. There’s so much to learn. Lots of complexities and so many people to help. Medicine gives me an avenue to serve, because if we don’t have our health, what do we have? Illness. And, none of us want that.

I’ve trained to be a physician. I’ve learned lots of things that can help you with sickness. But, in order to do this, they have to let me practice. And, yes, they are the people who have taken medicine.

When did medicine become more about meeting than doing? When I first became interested in medicine, physicians worked. We worked days and nights, hours on end. We learned by working. We worked by doing. And, things weren’t perfect then. But, we took care of patients by actually doing something that literally moved the needle.

Now, it’s different. We just meet about it.

Toward the end of my medical training, administrative meetings were already running rampant. We’d meet because some group said we should be doing a quality improvement project. Just some new regulatory thing. Gotta come up with a project. Every year.

News flash for the folks scheduling meetings: that’s not how innovation works.

Bureaucracies don’t drive innovation. Never have. Never will. I’ll tell you how we did those practice improvement projects that someone else told us we should be doing. We usually would type up some protocol that we were already doing and then add it as another formal policy. Box checked. That’s what humans do when they are given futile tasks with poor incentives.

Meetings in health care have really just become smokescreens for government-driven busywork. Sure, they can be functional, and in fact, they always add more functions for all of us to be doing. But, most of the time these meetings aren’t productive for patient care because they’ve lost sight of the one thing medicine was built upon: the patient-physician relationship.

Take a look at the graph included here. It outlines the growth of administrators in health care compared to physicians over the last forty years. And, it includes an overlay of America’s health care spending over that same time. Take a look at the yellow color. A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it?

You see, when you have that much administration, what you really have is a bunch of meetings. Lots of folks carrying their coffee from place to place. They are meeting about more policies, more protocols to satisfy government-created nonsense. But, this type of thing in health care isn’t fixing things. It’s not moving the needle.

What moves things is innovation. And, innovation isn’t some concept that responds to being forced. It develops when the right chemicals exist in the right moment for an exciting explosion. It happens when someone in a free-market recognizes a problem and creates a business idea to solve it. But, we’ve completely lost this environment for innovation in health care. Medicine has been kidnapped by a bunch of government-driven regulations that cost billions of unnecessary taxpayer dollars for oversight.

I get it. We need some administrators. And, I’ve got a few good friends that do this job well. They should be somewhere on the graph, because medical providers need support systems. I get their role. I’ve got a Master’s Degree in health organizational management myself.

But, the point I’m making is that the bureaucracy has exploded out of control. When you have so many excessive regulations that you need that many people overseeing checkboxes instead of delivering medical care, you aren’t just stifling innovation, you are having untoward effects on cost control. Medicine used to be about you and me. In fact, where in the world did the patient-physician relationship go? I guess that it left when Medicine did.

I don’t care what you do. You can take me out, join me, or get out of my way. But, I’m on a mission to take medicine back.

Rocky Bilhartz is a cardiologist and the author of Finding Truth in Transparency: Our Broken Healthcare System and How We Can Heal It. He can be reached at BilhartzMD.com.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com

Prev

So you had a bad day: 3 reasons why doctors should have some perspective

August 25, 2015 Kevin 5
…
Next

Patients become people through the social history

August 26, 2015 Kevin 6
…

Tagged as: Public Health & Policy

Post navigation

< Previous Post
So you had a bad day: 3 reasons why doctors should have some perspective
Next Post >
Patients become people through the social history

More by Rocky Bilhartz, MD

  • No matter what Trump does to health care, we must accept an imperfect reality

    Rocky Bilhartz, MD
  • The interference in health care is mesmerizing

    Rocky Bilhartz, MD
  • Health care has far too many medical panels

    Rocky Bilhartz, MD

Related Posts

  • Take politics out of science and medicine

    Allison Neitzel, MD
  • How social media can advance humanism in medicine

    Pooja Lakshmin, MD
  • Medicine is failing rural Americans

    Michael McCarthy
  • How to develop a mission-driven personal brand

    Paige Velasquez Budde
  • The demonization of socialized medicine

    Matthew Hahn, MD
  • The difference between learning medicine and doing medicine

    Steven Zhang, MD

More in Policy

  • Pediatricians grapple with guns in America, from Band-Aids to bullets

    Tasia Isbell, MD, MPH
  • Health care wins, losses, and lessons

    Robert Pearl, MD
  • Maximizing care amidst provider shortages: the power of measurement-based care

    Tom Zaubler, MD
  • Unveiling excessive medical billing and greed

    Amol Saxena, DPM, MPH
  • Chronic health issues and homelessness

    Michele Luckenbaugh
  • The impact of certificate of need laws on rural health care

    Jaimie Cavanaugh, JD and Daryl James
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • Reigniting after burnout: 3 physician stories

      Kim Downey, PT | Physician
    • The erosion of patient care

      Laura de la Torre, MD | Physician
    • I’m tired of being a distracted doctor

      Shiv Rao, MD | Tech
    • Inside the grueling life of a surgery intern

      Randall S. Fong, MD | Physician
    • Practicing medicine with conviction

      Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA | Physician
    • Family support is pivotal in the treatment of schizophrenia

      Frank Chen, MD | Conditions
  • Past 6 Months

    • Medical gaslighting: a growing challenge in today’s medical landscape

      Tami Burdick | Conditions
    • I want to be a doctor who can provide care for women: What states must I rule out for my medical education?

      Nandini Erodula | Education
    • Balancing opioid medication in chronic pain

      L. Joseph Parker, MD | Conditions
    • Reigniting after burnout: 3 physician stories

      Kim Downey, PT | Physician
    • I’m a doctor, and I almost died during childbirth

      Bayo Curry-Winchell, MD | Physician
    • Mourning the silent epidemic: the physician suicide crisis and suggestions for change

      Amna Shabbir, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • Practicing medicine with conviction

      Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA | Physician
    • The power of memory in shaping human identity

      Emily F. Peters and Sandeep Jauhar, MD, PhD | Physician
    • How Tratak yoga reshaped my USMLE Step 2 prep

      Dr. Nikita Mehdiratta | Education
    • Transforming primary care for physician well-being [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • COVID-19 unleashed an ongoing crisis of delirium in hospitals

      Christina Reppas-Rindlisbacher, MD, Nathan Stall, MD, and Paula Rochon, MD | Conditions
    • Doctors and disability insurance: Protecting your income

      Amarish Dave, DO | Finance

Subscribe to KevinMD and never miss a story!

Get free updates delivered free to your inbox.


Find jobs at
Careers by KevinMD.com

Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now.

Learn more

View 55 Comments >

Founded in 2004 by Kevin Pho, MD, KevinMD.com is the web’s leading platform where physicians, advanced practitioners, nurses, medical students, and patients share their insight and tell their stories.

Social

  • Like on Facebook
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Connect on Linkedin
  • Subscribe on Youtube
  • Instagram

CME Spotlights

From MedPage Today

Latest News

  • COVID Heart Injuries Traced Back to Infected Arterial Plaque, Inflammation
  • Obamacare Makes Surprise Cameo in Second GOP Debate
  • Doc Accuses Neighbor of Hosing Him Down; LGBTQ-Serving Doc Accused of Sexual Assault
  • The Private Sector Can Help Fill the Void in LGBTQ+ Healthcare
  • Mayo Scrubs HCQ Data; Pharmacy Walkout Averted; Springsteen's Peptic Ulcer Disease

Meeting Coverage

  • New Schizophrenia Treatments Are Coming: Don't Panic
  • Loneliness Needs to Be Treated Like Any Other Health Condition, Researcher Suggests
  • Stopping Medical Misinformation Requires Early Detection
  • AI Has an Image Problem in Healthcare, Expert Says
  • Want Better Health Outcomes? Check Out What Other Countries Do
  • Most Popular

  • Past Week

    • Reigniting after burnout: 3 physician stories

      Kim Downey, PT | Physician
    • The erosion of patient care

      Laura de la Torre, MD | Physician
    • I’m tired of being a distracted doctor

      Shiv Rao, MD | Tech
    • Inside the grueling life of a surgery intern

      Randall S. Fong, MD | Physician
    • Practicing medicine with conviction

      Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA | Physician
    • Family support is pivotal in the treatment of schizophrenia

      Frank Chen, MD | Conditions
  • Past 6 Months

    • Medical gaslighting: a growing challenge in today’s medical landscape

      Tami Burdick | Conditions
    • I want to be a doctor who can provide care for women: What states must I rule out for my medical education?

      Nandini Erodula | Education
    • Balancing opioid medication in chronic pain

      L. Joseph Parker, MD | Conditions
    • Reigniting after burnout: 3 physician stories

      Kim Downey, PT | Physician
    • I’m a doctor, and I almost died during childbirth

      Bayo Curry-Winchell, MD | Physician
    • Mourning the silent epidemic: the physician suicide crisis and suggestions for change

      Amna Shabbir, MD | Physician
  • Recent Posts

    • Practicing medicine with conviction

      Arthur Lazarus, MD, MBA | Physician
    • The power of memory in shaping human identity

      Emily F. Peters and Sandeep Jauhar, MD, PhD | Physician
    • How Tratak yoga reshaped my USMLE Step 2 prep

      Dr. Nikita Mehdiratta | Education
    • Transforming primary care for physician well-being [PODCAST]

      The Podcast by KevinMD | Podcast
    • COVID-19 unleashed an ongoing crisis of delirium in hospitals

      Christina Reppas-Rindlisbacher, MD, Nathan Stall, MD, and Paula Rochon, MD | Conditions
    • Doctors and disability insurance: Protecting your income

      Amarish Dave, DO | Finance

MedPage Today Professional

An Everyday Health Property Medpage Today
  • Terms of Use | Disclaimer
  • Privacy Policy
  • DMCA Policy
All Content © KevinMD, LLC
Site by Outthink Group

This doctor is on a mission to take back medicine
55 comments

Comments are moderated before they are published. Please read the comment policy.

Loading Comments...