I know a doctor who relocated to a small town after being recruited to join a new practice. He sold his house, bought a new one and uprooted his family for a move 150 miles away. It turned out that it was not a lucrative move. His schedule was quickly filled with Medicare patients, most of whom required 30-minute visits due to multiple chronic conditions. He remarked that his pediatrician colleague could see two or three privately insured patients during the time it took him to see one (lower paying) Medicare patient. His income fell far below expectations and he decided to get out.
Category: Doctors & Hospitals
Thursday Links
- Bill Gates: AI will revolutionize health care in the third world.
- Why do physicians “care” about their patients, any more than scientists care about a lab rat? Should they?
- HHS: surprise billing arbitrators are being swamped with claims. That’s because the law was poorly implemented.
- California’s highest concentrations of electric cars — between 10.9% and 14.2% of all vehicles — are in ZIP codes where residents are at least 75% white and Asian.
U.S. Health Care System Causes Patient Burnout (and Doctors Too)
Time Magazine discovered that seeing the doctor can be a real pain in the caboose. You aren’t feeling well so you call your doctor’s office. They tell you the next available appointment slot is several weeks away. You wait three weeks and finally present at the doctors’ office, where you wait in a “waiting room” while filling out a mountain of paperwork your doctor should already have. You are led to an exam room where you wait some more. You finally see your physician, whose face is buried in a computer screen. Ten minutes later you’re summarily dismissed and told to get lab work that has been ordered for you. A month later you get the bills (plural). Your appointment lasted only 10 minutes, but your budget will feel the sting for weeks to come. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone.
States Try to Cap Travel Nurse Wages that Skyrocketed During Covid
During Covid outbreaks nurses willing to relocate for temporary assignments could command a huge premium over their regular wages. Hospitals overwhelmed with patients had little choice but to pay whatever it took to recruit scarce nurses. As I’ve said in the past, hospitals are loath to raise nurses’ pay. They often hire temporary nursing staffing at much higher rates than raise the standard pay to recruit staff nurses. During Covid outbreaks hospitals’ unwillingness to compensate nurses for the heightened risk and heavier workloads caused many to jump ship and join traveling nurse agencies.