Arvind Cavale, MD

Political leaders are oblivious to the true causes of physician burnout

Physician

March 24, 2018

There has been a nauseating amount of discussion about physician burnout lately. An equal number of remedies, from mindfulness to exercise, to inpatient psychiatric treatment for doctors experiencing unmanageable stress and burnout. And then I read this report of a survey from the world-famous Cleveland Clinic, which describes 35 percent of nearly 1100 physicians employed the Cleveland Clinic have signs of overt burnout. More importantly, those physicians who cared more about their …

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Improve Medicaid with these simple steps

Arvind Cavale, MD

Policy

August 14, 2017

Recently, the Republicans’ health insurance bill was withdrawn, partly because of some Senators’ fear of underfunding Medicaid. The media and Democrats have clearly identified Medicaid as a wedge issue that divides Republicans. Unfortunately, those Republicans that have chosen to support conventional Medicaid, as opposed to supporting a much-needed revamp of this program, have succumbed to false advertisements. So let me review some facts, and suggest some common sense changes that …

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Caring and dedicated physicians are being driven out of medicine

Arvind Cavale, MD

Physician

August 9, 2016

Last week, a patient with severe gastroparesis came in for an unexpected visit. She seemed very upset, on the verge of tears. Instead of asking her why she was in, I asked her why she was so sad.

“My hematologist just retired; I was her last patient. I don’t know who will take care of me like she did. And she wasn’t even old enough to retire,” she said. This took …

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Physicians and patients must retake control of how health care is delivered

Arvind Cavale, MD

Tech

April 13, 2016

For years, many physicians have complained about the onerous nature of government-certified electronic medical records. However, thanks to the HITECH Act, the rush to digitize medical records has continued. Due to the impetus provided by the ACA and subsequently by MACRA, the mad rush has progressed into a frenzy of data-collecting and reporting activity, all in the name of value over volume.

Recently, two objective reports have surfaced demonstrating the futility of …

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Reporting physician quality: The dangerous game the government plays

Arvind Cavale, MD

Policy

November 25, 2014

We have heard ad nauseum that the data collection mandated by Medicare and Medicaid is to improve quality of care. Significant taxpayer dollars have been expended as bonuses in the name of PQRS (Physician Quality Reporting System). With all this investment and mandating, one would assume that the PQRS must be highly indicative of better quality of patient care, right? Not so fast.

Two recent reports demonstrate how ineffective this program is and how much physicians hate …

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The Sunshine Act escalates the war on physicians

Arvind Cavale, MD

Policy

October 23, 2014

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The media has feasted on the recent release of data by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that details payments made by the pharmaceutical and device companies to hospitals and physicians in 2013. This was part of the the Physician Payments Sunshine Act (PPSA) — also known as section 6002 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010.

What …

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Solving the VA physician shortage: Get rid of the middle managers

Arvind Cavale, MD

Policy

September 17, 2014

The new VA secretary, Robert A. McDonald, speaking to a room-full of reporters, acknowledged for the first time that the department needed to hire “tens of thousands of new doctors, new nurses, new clinicians.” It is now accepted that a shortage of employees directly involved in treating patients was a main driver in the waiting-list scandal that rocked the agency this year.

The second, and equally important driver, was the artificially created benchmarks, …

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