Everyone likes to complain about health insurance costs but none of that matters if we don’t have providers!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And totally agree that the healthcare system isn’t at up for preventative care, which is maddening for physicians. The insurance companies fight tooth and nail to pay for preventative care care and the. Again for much needed sick care. They are atrocious.

All the preventive care stuff is covered.

You have no idea. Doctors spend hours on the phone every week arguing with insurance companies who fight every test and medication.

If they are spending hours arguing about basic preventive care services then they aren’t coding things correctly. Either the doc or their coder isn’t very knowledgeable.

Or rather they are and need to do the resubmit shuffle a few times, then have the og code accepted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we all are going to die anyway. Why even bother with healthcare?

We don’t have healthcare, we have sickcare. Our current system is doing tremendous harm.

The vast majority of wellness is beholden to the ‘patient’ - learn to eat well, be active and exercise, have good relationships and practice gratitude (or something to provide mental stability, there are many options ), and don’t do any risk taking behaviors.

Excellent advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have to say I’m mystified by all this.
I have a very smart incredibly hard working teen who wants to be a doctor. She did well in HS and got into an excellent college. But now they seem like they want to push half the kids out of pre med with really hard “weed out” classes and a lousy grading curve. And on top of all that coursework she’s supposed to do research (even though no labs have spots thanks to the administration), shadowing (which you basically have to know someone to achieve), clinical hours (really don’t even know how you do this) and volunteering, plus of course studying for the mcat. And that’s all before med school itself and the grind of residency! It really seems like they don’t want people to be doctors! So we end up importing doctors from countries that make it much easier to be doctors. This all seems to make zero sense to me. We are taking our top American students and doing everything we can to duscourage them from becoming doctors.

Yes, and then after you have dedicated years of your life and jumped through all of their hoops, only 40% of applicants are accepted every year. And don’t believe the AAMC’s fake BS concern over physician shortages. They throw up more roadblocks and barriers for applicants every year while raking in more and more money from them. Meanwhile, they and their cronies at the AMA are probably secretly lobbying Congress to not lift the residency cap so that they can keep wages up and keep the profession exclusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have to say I’m mystified by all this.
I have a very smart incredibly hard working teen who wants to be a doctor. She did well in HS and got into an excellent college. But now they seem like they want to push half the kids out of pre med with really hard “weed out” classes and a lousy grading curve. And on top of all that coursework she’s supposed to do research (even though no labs have spots thanks to the administration), shadowing (which you basically have to know someone to achieve), clinical hours (really don’t even know how you do this) and volunteering, plus of course studying for the mcat. And that’s all before med school itself and the grind of residency! It really seems like they don’t want people to be doctors! So we end up importing doctors from countries that make it much easier to be doctors. This all seems to make zero sense to me. We are taking our top American students and doing everything we can to duscourage them from becoming doctors.

Add in being middle class but on the edge of poor but not enough to qualify for help and its pretty insurmountable.
The issues listed here were the same issues I experienced when graduating in 2013.

All the adcoms care about are the low income applicants of color and the rich, connected nepo babies. If you are not in these categories, you must be a perfect applicant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AI can do a lot to save this problem. So many people see 5 specialists before finally seeing the correct doctor to treat a condition. Imagine if more people were directed to the correct specialist, how many appointments would free up.

Imagine you could head into your annual physical with your labs already analyzed by AI and a list of questions to ask. Efficient! Less messages back and forth.

Etc. Etc. Note none of these examples use AI to replace medical care, although I could frankly see AI taking over some things like radiology.

Your last statement alone tells me how little you know about the medical profession. AI is nowhere close to replacing radiology. If you are close to working with the technology, you know it barely can be used as an aid let alone a replacement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, we all are going to die anyway. Why even bother with healthcare?

That's like saying why bother to eat.

It is a bit disappointing to learn how our food has been poisoned for decades.

No it has not.

[Anonymous]

Look at it this way, doctors pay is not inflation adjusted because fees for services are not inflation adjusted. Everyone got a 30% raise to cover the 30% rise in goods/services. Is it still worth becoming a doctor? Would you work in a field where your income keeps getting cut and the price of entry (student loans) has doubled? I don't think so. The consumer needs to wake up and realize doctors are being abused, patients blame them but in reality it's the insurance company that is stealing from both you and the doctors! You guys blame the docs because they're the closest to you and easiest to put blame on but that is so far from the truth. Damn the insurance companies, they peg the patient and doctor against each other all while ceo takes millions a year. They sure as hell get raises

Sign a doc

[Anonymous]

I have two relatives in healthcare.

3x12-hours shifts has been considered full-time for decades. That’s 36 hours, buts it’s a very draining 36 hours.

Insurance paperwork has gotten much worse over the years. My sibling works on charts during nights and all day Saturday, but she didn’t have a spouse or kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And totally agree that the healthcare system isn’t at up for preventative care, which is maddening for physicians. The insurance companies fight tooth and nail to pay for preventative care care and the. Again for much needed sick care. They are atrocious.

All the preventive care stuff is covered.

You have no idea. Doctors spend hours on the phone every week arguing with insurance companies who fight every test and medication.

If they are spending hours arguing about basic preventive care services then they aren’t coding things correctly. Either the doc or their coder isn’t very knowledgeable.

Look yes sometimes providers make mistakes. But the insurance companies intentionally make the process of getting claims paid out difficult. They lie, put people on hold, delay, all with the obvious intent of trying to get people to give up.

We use a couple of out of network providers for our child who needs weekly therapy so we submit the claims ourselves. I spent hours on the phone with our insurance provider with people insisting, sending me documents, putting me on hold to "check", claiming that we were required to get prior authorization for the services. I had chosen this plan specifically because my coworker whose child has similar needs uses it and had never had any trouble getting claims paid out.

I had to make a big stink with my employer and then finally the insurance company called me to apologize. I wanted to curse at them because they had been lying to me over and over again and they knew it. I was venting about this to my physician friend and she basically said yep, they are just trying to get people to give up. These companies are psychopathic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anecdotally, every single one of my doctors works only 2-3 days/week, and they are all young- in their 30s and 40s. My older doctors have all retired, save for one in her 50s who quit medicine abruptly. She was the best doctor I’ve ever had.

I think we either need more medical school slots and residencies or some kind of requirement of working 5 days/week for x number of years if you’re going to take a US residency slot.

Agree. The AMA restricts the number of people in medical schools to keep the salaries high.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And totally agree that the healthcare system isn’t at up for preventative care, which is maddening for physicians. The insurance companies fight tooth and nail to pay for preventative care care and the. Again for much needed sick care. They are atrocious.

All the preventive care stuff is covered.

You have no idea. Doctors spend hours on the phone every week arguing with insurance companies who fight every test and medication.

If they are spending hours arguing about basic preventive care services then they aren’t coding things correctly. Either the doc or their coder isn’t very knowledgeable.

Look yes sometimes providers make mistakes. But the insurance companies intentionally make the process of getting claims paid out difficult. They lie, put people on hold, delay, all with the obvious intent of trying to get people to give up.

We use a couple of out of network providers for our child who needs weekly therapy so we submit the claims ourselves. I spent hours on the phone with our insurance provider with people insisting, sending me documents, putting me on hold to "check", claiming that we were required to get prior authorization for the services. I had chosen this plan specifically because my coworker whose child has similar needs uses it and had never had any trouble getting claims paid out.

I had to make a big stink with my employer and then finally the insurance company called me to apologize. I wanted to curse at them because they had been lying to me over and over again and they knew it. I was venting about this to my physician friend and she basically said yep, they are just trying to get people to give up. These companies are psychopathic.

This isn’t preventive care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And totally agree that the healthcare system isn’t at up for preventative care, which is maddening for physicians. The insurance companies fight tooth and nail to pay for preventative care care and the. Again for much needed sick care. They are atrocious.

All the preventive care stuff is covered.

You have no idea. Doctors spend hours on the phone every week arguing with insurance companies who fight every test and medication.

Not quite as dramatic as you are making it.

[Anonymous]

DH is a MD and I have worked in healthcare for 33 years. I rarely had insurance deny care that was covered a covered service in their premiums. DH and I help many family members with their medical care and no one has been denied services.
If you want to forgo conservative treatment before an MRI or surgery, yes, you will be denied. If you want to dictate what medicine you take when an off-brand is available, you may be denied. If the coding is correct- and believe me, there is a lot of hoops to jump through before demonstrating need, and you have triage the situation appropriately, usually try and conservative approach first, if there is good documentation on all of this, then you rarely see denials.

[Anonymous]

All the physicians I know are trying to steer DC away from medicine. Primary reason- unrealistic expectations from both admin and patients.

[Anonymous]

Everyone hates the insurance companies, but no one wants a single payer

It's a complex issue, and I think insurance companies are a big part of the problem - they are the middle man, in-between you and your doctor, taking their cut.

And, malpractice rates are sky high (needs to be, because when a doc makes a mistake, it can be life-altering in horrendous ways, in which case your medical needs should be taken care of forever, but there's also lots of needless lawsuits by those hoping for a quick payout).

The fear of malpractice also causes docs to order unnecessary tests, "just to make sure." That adds up to millions, if not billions of wasted healthcare dollars

There's pharmacy benefits managers also taking cuts and setting prices

And, we are all to blame for the amount we choose to spend on extraordinary measures to prolong end of life care, when we should not. Keeping people alive in vegetative state, why? So a machine can keep blood pumping through your comatose body? And other crazy things I've seen