Health Care Reality Check

[Red Arrow]

You still can, but you have to pay.  Clientele is usually the $250,000+ income earner.

That explains why I didn't know about it.

[guido911]

Excellent video featuring Oklahoma doctors.

Great video. My recent surgery stint and post op experience was similar. From check in to discharge, each person involved had multiple tasks. It was as well orchestrated a process as I have ever seen. And I was in the health care field for a number of years.

And by the way, I really like my health care. I have fantastic PCP, cardiology,and when I need it (often) ortho (EOOC).  I do not want it eff'd with by anyone.

With that said, the point of starting this thread was to let folks know that I saw something that really sucks TODAY. Getting quality health care for certain persons. And its going to suck a lot worse later. And CF: More doctors isn't necessarily the solution. In medicine, more is not as important as capable. And if you do open the floodgates, why would anyone want to focus on primary care work (except ER), such as peds or geriatric. Too little money and too much bureaucracy.

[Townsend]

And by the way, I really like my health care. I have fantastic PCP, cardiology,and when I need it (often) ortho (EOOC).  I do not want it eff'd with by anyone.

Any suggestions who to see at EOOC?  The guy working on my neck did the job but his 3 hour window when it comes to appt times was killing me.

My appointment could be first thing in the morning and I'd still wait 2 hours for that guy to walk in.

[Conan71]

Any suggestions who to see at EOOC?  The guy working on my neck did the job but his 3 hour window when it comes to appt times was killing me.

My appointment could be first thing in the morning and I'd still wait 2 hours for that guy to walk in.

Depends on who the spinal specialist is.  I've seen him when I had a neck/shoulder issue and can't remember his name now.

[guido911]

Any suggestions who to see at EOOC?  The guy working on my neck did the job but his 3 hour window when it comes to appt times was killing me.

My appointment could be first thing in the morning and I'd still wait 2 hours for that guy to walk in.

Have you thought about getting a pacemaker first? I am really pushing those nowadays. My ortho needs were for elbows and shoulder. So I went with Dr. Emel in sports med. He also has later in the day appts and is all business. Dr. Capehart is another that I have heard good things. Let me ask my wife about your deal because that could be neuro too. Also for PT, I know who to rec and they are located near us. For a while it seemed I was living at their offices.

[TulsaRufnex]

You are an unbelievable moron. You, and soccer punk, have made such stupid assumptions about me and this thread that there is nothing else to do but laugh at you both.

You've made more stupid assumptions about me than just about anybody.
Almost like you want to put me on trial..... oh, wait....   

[TulsaRufnex]

Here is a question:  why does the discussion never include the need to force the AMA to encourage  MORE DOCTORs?

That'd be about as much fun as "forcing" the NRA to encourage LESS HANDGUNs... good luck with that.    

There is an artificial shortage of doctors created by our medical school system and immigration policy.  Making it harder to find doctors and healthcare more costly.  Similarly, if we continue to expand the roll of nurses and PAs we can prove efficiency.  Capitalism is a wonderful thing, but when it is manipulated it often increases problems.

Add in the death of the single payer system and the rise in health insurance conglomerates and the growth of medicaid/care and we have a real failure of capitalism.  The worst healthcare per dollar spent in the world.  Even with all that money we are not in the top for healthcare by the vast majority of metrics.

If a government program had these metrics of costs and stats attached to them, that program would be demonized, dismantled and privatized by the very same conservative Republicans who are such defenders of de-regulation, voluntary compliance and "market-based" solutions...
Capitalist laissez faire healthcare and insurance bureaucracies give us blizzards of paperwork, yet we continue to pay through the nose to put up with a patchwork of separate but unequal systems that bear little resemblance to the traditional view of healthcare based on "ability to pay."
 
There seems to be no shortage of medical marketing experts, though...

Consumer drug ads drive up health costs -US study
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/23/drugs-advertising-idUSN2327475820091123

From 1999 to 2000, there were no consumer-directed ads for Plavix. But from 2001 to 2005, U.S. advertising spending for Plavix topped $350 million, or an average of $70 million a year.
During the study period, doctors servicing Medicaid patients did not change the prescribing trends, but the amount of money spent by Medicaid on the drug rose dramatically.

FWIW my uncle retired from his practice very recently.  His primary reason was he was tired of dealing with ignorant patients who refused to take care of themselves and then blasted him with stupid questions or demanded vanity procedures (I want a c-section on XYZ date because we have  vacation planned for ABC or I want to have a C-section before the baby gets so big I have stretch marks)....  30 years as an OBGYN in the Tulsa area and few lawsuits against him (which is remarkable for an OB).   He complained a little about insurance companies and uncessary procedures mandated by either an insurance company or a law; but by far and away his primary complaint was patients.

I would argue that people are still people.  So, what has changed in the last 30 years?  Do women just "refuse to take of themselves" or is it that more women work more hours in more stressful yet sedentary work environments?  I'd postulate that 30 years ago, you did what the doc told you to do... and Madison Ave. has bombarded us over the past 15 years with new drug ads touting the magic words: "ask your doctor."  Does this excuse human behavior?  No.  Does it help explain it?  Yep.

Pharma's misguided TV pitches
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/22/opinion/oe-lane22

We do not go to American TV to seek signs of deep thought. The studios that gave us "Baywatch," "Toddlers & Tiaras" and "Skating with Celebrities" can't be accused of setting our expectations too high. Still, at least we know what we're getting with such shows. Direct-to-consumer, or DTC, pharmaceutical advertising, legal only in the U.S. and New Zealand, is -- or should be -- another matter. After all, it concerns public health.

We should recall that we did just fine when these ads were limited to professional journals and healthcare providers. That constraint reduced the risk of self-diagnosis -- and spared us the barrage of vanity treatments that now beset us.

In 1997, however, the Food and Drug Administration -- encouraged by the Clinton administration -- relaxed its rules on this issue. The pharmaceutical industry was given a green light to bypass providers and market its wares directly to consumers.

To gauge the effect of that change, just follow the money. The year before the ruling, drug companies spent $595 million on DTC advertising, according to the Food and Drug Law Journal. Within a year of the change, their spending rose to $844 million. By 2000, it shot up to $2.24 billion. And an August 2007 New England Journal of Medicine article put the total for all drug-related marketing in 2005 at $29.9 billion, with $4.1 billion spent annually on DTC advertising. That's more than $11 million a day.

[Conan71]

You mean his excuse for quitting?

I just love the difference between doctors 50 years ago and today.

BTW, I have been looking for a new physician for 6 months. It will take longer to settle on one because I want him/her to outlive me.

Lots of D.O.'s but few M.D.'s....

Let us stay well.

It's not my place to judge his motives or to call him a "quitter".  I was taught long ago not to judge someone else until I'd walked a mile in his or her moccasins.