Doctors going Broke

1. 88

   Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

   Doctors in America are harboring an embarrassing secret: Many of them are going broke.
   
   This quiet reality, which is spreading nationwide, is claiming a wide range of casualties, including family physicians, cardiologists and oncologists.
   
   Industry watchers say the trend is worrisome. Half of all doctors in the nation operate a private practice. So if a cash crunch forces the death of an independent practice, it robs a community of a vital health care resource.
   
   "A lot of independent practices are starting to see serious financial issues," said Marc Lion, CEO of Lion & Company CPAs, LLC, which advises independent doctor practices about their finances.
   
   Doctors list shrinking insurance reimbursements, changing regulations, rising business and drug costs among the factors preventing them from keeping their practices afloat. But some experts counter that doctors' lack of business acumen is also to blame.
   
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   http://finance.yahoo.com/news/small-bus … 00127.html
   
   I've heard this from friends and family members also.their doctors are discussing shutting down or going into practice with groups of doctors...

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   1. 44

      Kelley Eidemposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      A doctor's life is a rough one for sure.
      
      They work their rear ends off and have all sorts of stresses placed on them. To make matters worse, they rarely cure anybody other than setting broken bones. That has to be hard on them psychologically.
      
      They are the best and the brightest, but all that training doesn't produce cures. They might see dozens of patients a day, yet they hardly ever get a real cure if they are prescribing like most doctors do.
      
      The other day, an 85 year old friend stopped by. He was suffering from a burning feeling in his chest and a cough to go with it. I sprinkled some cayenne pepper from a spice bottle and put 1,000 mgs of ginger in it as well in a few ounces of water.
      
      He swished the drink in his mouth for as along as he could before swallowing. He did this two or three times. For the next half hour, he coughed up phlegm. After that the burning pain was gone. I bumped in to his 4 days later and hthe burning was still gone.
      
      No doctor who prescribes drugs ever sees a 'cure' like that with any of his patients. As a result fewer people go to the doctors because they know he doesn't have anything to truly help them. That hurts the doctor's pocket book.

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      1. 79

         ngurecoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         The statement stated above is a very strong statement.
         
         I would think the cost of healthcare is very high in that country. How do you justify that a minor surgery should cost a patient $40,000? With that kind of cost, more people are turning to the cheap Chinese medicine.
         
         In the meantime, advancement in medicine will halt, diseases will get harder to cure, and at the end of the day the greatest loser will be you and I, as more doctors drop out of business one by one.

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2. 84

   rebekahELLEposted 12 years ago

   At my annual gynecological exam this past year, I was talking with the nurse before the doctor came in. She said, don't get him started talking about the economy, half-jokingly. Well, somehow the subject came up (you have to talk about something during one of those visits ), and he mentioned that he may have to close his practice. This is an established, well-liked, reputable OB/GYN who works from two offices(private practice)/one hospital, who has been in the community for decades. There was a sign in the room which said circumcisions were no longer covered by insurance which is what got the conversation going in the first place.
   My primary doctor now treats patients who he hasn't seen in a year as a new patient. I was shocked. I said, I didn't need a doctor this past year! All I wanted was a prescription refill for a seasonal allergy.

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3. 84

   psycheskinnerposted 12 years ago

   Why shove you anti-conventional medicine into this thread? If you want to discuss that 'medicine never cures anyone nonsense' (yet again), start your own thread.

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   1. 44

      Kelley Eidemposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Your question was already answered. You are invited to reread my final paragraph to familiarize yourself with it.

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   2. 0

      Phoebe Pikeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I've been to the doctors several times in my life, and they have cured my ailments, so whenever I hear someone say that medicine doesn't work, I laugh it off.

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      1. 44

         Kelley Eidemposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         You didn't mention what you were 'cured' of.
         
         Point out one person who has ever been cured of arthritis by prescription drugs. The same with heart disease, Alzheimer's, auto-immune disease, diabetes. IBS, fibromyalgia, chronic sinus problems, migraines, etc?

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            Phoebe Pikeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I was cured of kidney failure.

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            1. 44

               Kelley Eidemposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Are you taking drugs for your kidneys?

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                  Phoebe Pikeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

                  I took pills for a while, now I just take vitamins because they are stable.

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            Phoebe Pikeposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            And my father was "cured" of kidney failure by a transplant. His new kidney took to his body and he was fine. A few years later he died from another organ failing, but it was unrelated to his kidneys.

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4. 80

   Healthy Pursuitsposted 12 years ago

   While I've known some caring and good doctors in my life, I've found the majority of them to be pride-filled, egotistical, greedy and falling far short of being worth the fees they charged. That information has been gathered in the forty years between the time I first described symptoms of a disease to a doctor and the time I actually found a doctor who had enough instinct and intelligence to correctly diagnose that same disease. Note that I said, "Most of them".
   They are losing billions of dollars a year to alternative, or integrative, medicine, because their patients have turned to alternative medicine from pure frustration. Patients find that many times the N.D. listens better, prescribes less expensive medicine and spends more time with the patient than the M.D. ever did. 
   Doctors in America had a lot of power for most of the 20th century over approving or denying what changes were made by insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and state and federal government. However, they did nothing during some very major changes. They were too filled with hubris, too comfortable and too focused on the bucks that were rolling in.
   As a matter of fact, some of them made a lot of money in for-profit hospitals and by choosing to specialize based on which was the most profitable over any other reason. That was in spite of what the communities needed. Essentially, they chose to practice money-based medicine, until it became too expensive for their patients.
   As their patients became increasingly uncomfortable, too many doctors showed little or no concern for them. Now  when doctors try to make changes to areas that affect their own practices, they find that the power they once had has been lost from lack of use.
   Essentially, the overpriced medical model that they've been so happy to follow and to perpetuate all of these years has caused the crap to gain momentum as it has rolled up hill, and now they're feeling it, too. Frankly, with over 14 million Americans having little or no access to medical care, I have little sympathy for the poor doctors' "plight". Clinics have been closing all over the country for years now, because doctors have been deserting them, to make better money elsewhere.
   I had heard that a doctor I'd gone to once had given up his clinic participation for a Kaiser job. I asked what Kaiser doctors were being paid. And I was not surprised to find that he was making sure he still made the high bucks. And I had no doubt that he still wasn't worth the money.

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5. 81

   Wesman Todd Shawposted 12 years ago

   I think people have the wrong impression about "smart people."  Smart folk are likely to be just a screwed out of the bottle as less intelligent persons.
   
   Intelligence is no indicator of thrift, or wisdom even.
   
   I'd love to help the Doctor's out of the poor house or debtor's prisons, but I ...am not even a smart person.  Smart persons have jobs.

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6. 77

   Shadesbreathposted 12 years ago

   The system is broken. As with pretty much everything undermining America right now, the people with the skills for manipulating money are the ones who ultimately perverted the purpose of healthcare. The system isn't driven by cures or health, it's driven by payment and fear, managed by lawyers, corporations and money manipulators.
   
   (And lol @ Kelley Eidem's cinnamon and gnat's teeth remedy or whatever that was in that comment.)

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      Kelley Eidemposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Keep drinking your beer and taking your pills from the doctor. Hell, take a double dose.

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         Shadesbreathposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         I'll stick to beer. Drinking has been a joyful and uplifting part of the human experience for almost as long as fire. Few things outside of ourselves has done as much for us.
         
         You can have the pills. They're hardly any different than ground duck lips and willow bark are. Mainly a matter of packaging and social validation (the guy in the white coat is more trustworthy than the dude with the bone through his nose... or so we are led to believe).

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         1. 44

            Kelley Eidemposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            One wonders why you would feel the need to use false descriptions of natural supplements or natural foods. Yes, "ground duck lips" sounds very image rich. But it is a lie.
            
            Of course your next line of rationalization is sure to be along the lines of "it was a joke" or "It was simple hyperbole."
            
            BTW, if you believe in beer, you believe in herbs. Hops are an herb.

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            1. 77

               Shadesbreathposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               You're not a very close reader are you?

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7. 59

   Eric Newlandposted 12 years ago

   Hmm, makes me wonder what the heart surgeon did to my daughter's critical aortal coarctation, since according to some of you he couldn't possibly have "cured" her.
   
   Maybe I should have just given her some rose water or something when she went into cardiac arrest on the eleventh day of her life, instead of entrusting her to those quacks that call themselves doctors.

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   1. 44

      Kelley Eidemposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Glad to hear your daughter is doing well.
      
      Now lets see if you know what the phrase "they hardly ever get a real cure" means. Does it mean "never" or does it mean something else?
      
      It's great to be able to clear that up for you.

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      1. 59

         Eric Newlandposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         My point is that when it comes to "important" stuff, i.e. emergent care, doctors are more likely to have a cure than anyone else. My initial impression was that you were poo-poohing the entire medical industry just you can make a home remedy that mimics the effects of an over-the-counter expectorant.

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         1. 44

            Kelley Eidemposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Actually if a person is fully trained in natural emergency medicine there are many things that can be done, whether the person is undergoing a heart attack or suffers from a broken bone.
            
            In cases where a person is smashed and crumpled to near death, then western medicine can do a few things that a well trained naturopath couldn't match. But as soon as the person is stabilized, then natural medicine is far superior.
            
            I needed back surgery due to a smashed bone in my back that required hardware to stabilize my back. I was glad to have a very good neurosurgeon to do the job. But due to what I know, I barely needed any narcotic pain killers after the 7 hour surgery that entailed grinding down bones and screws implanted for the appliances to be installed. I needed no narcotics once I left the hospital.
            
            My surgeon had never seen anything like that. Patients usually need pain killers for three months after the extensive type of surgery I had. I just didn't have any surgical pain.
            
            So I'm not talking about just a bad case of bronchitis. Natural medicine is far superior for every chronic illness and better for some parts of emergency medicine. Doctors never cure chronic illnesses. They manage them, and make them worse, not because they mean to do that - they just don't know any better due to their intense but inferior training.
            
            It's a shame because they are the best and the brightest. They could run rings around me if they had the right training. But I run rings around them because I have a better knowledge of what is curative than they do.
            
            To bring this back to the original topic, the long term effect of all that is that more and more people won't go to the doctor, and more and more people sue doctors. These things hurt their income. If they didn't have to pay so much for insurance, and if they achieved better results, they could earn more money.

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8. 88

   Stacie Lposted 12 years ago

   I can see why some western doctors going broke if they didn't alter their practice to include a ND license or certificate.
   
   Many patients,including myself, are tired of lazy family or general doctors who only send you to other specialists for expensive tests or write prescriptions for any ailment.
   
   They are too accustomed to being subsidized and take for granted they will be paid no matter what.

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9. 59

   Xenonlitposted 12 years ago

   I'm related to a dentist who lost practice, home, everything and was at one point driving a truck. Dentists go down before doctors in most cases because the first thing that people hold off on when they lose their jobs is routine and avoidable dental care.
   
   I am a medical marvel, with two specialties after me for visits right now. But I fortunately have the VA (a club that no one really wants to join..the price of membership is horrendous).
   
   Many doctors are moving into salaried positions and hating it. It's the private practice docs who are losing their businesses. Many times, they don't have the business acumen and are preyed upon by the lenders, just as any consumer is.
   
   There is a real conservative slant to private doctor's complaints. They are far more inclined to blame politicians and government than they are to blame job killers or financial institutions.
   
   They will find out soon what the rest of us have been going through.

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10. 60

    Cassie Smithposted 12 years ago

    I'm not surprised.  The way the whole health care thing is going there will be a shortage of doctors because they won't be well compensated for effort.  When Obamacare is applied full blown, there will a dearth of doctors and therefore long waiting line.s  It's already happening. A lot of doctors won't take on new medicaid patients because it's not profitable.

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11. 59

    freefoggingposted 12 years ago

    Being a nurse, I have seen doctors who do every test available just to turn around and bill the insurance companies...main goal is to make as much money as they can by stripping the insurance companies dry...The insurance companies then "pull out" and the doctors are left with not being able to accept patients with the insurance that has dropped out because of overcharging.
    
    I have seen this happen more and more...it's no wonder the insurance companies can't afford to pay as much for the tests and office visits...with these doctors bleeding them dry, it doesn't surprise me at all.
    
    This is why insurance companies have to lower the amount they pay for office visits, tests etc. The result is, the doctors don't get paid as much as they used to. I have not seen nor heard of any doctor going broke.
    
    The insurance companies still pay a large sum to the legitimate doctors. What was happening is we had a system that allowed these doctors to get rich fairly quickly...now they don't make as much money and say they are going broke?...I just don't see that happening...
    
    I think they need to give up their beach houses and condos in New York and their million dollar houses and all the vacations they take and live like the rest of us...going broke? No...I don't think so.

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12. 61

    girlgonestrongposted 12 years ago

    As bad as things are right now, they're going to get far, far worse.  It's expected that nearly 50% of the population is going to be obese by the year 2030.  That means that the other half of the nation are going to be pretty much carrying their weight.
    
    Is is any wonder that we couldn't get a true universal healthcare reform passed?  The lawmakers are not stupid.  There's no WAY that the healthy people are going to be able to pay for the health care of the sick when so much sickness is tied directly to being overweight.  It's not even a plausible idea...regardless of how much people whine about "we're the richest nation in the world but we don't have universal healthcare!"

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    1. 44

       Kelley Eidemposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       What you say is exactly right.
       
       We don't even need to wait until 2030. Four years ago one state had 30% obesity in adults. Four years later, it's 13 states with a minimum of 30%. You can be sure some are higher.
       
       Twenty-five percent of adults are taking a statin drug, which are dangerous drugs that cure nothing. They lower cholesterol while increasing xLDL's which are the most dangerous cholesterol.
       
       Meanwhile, according to the Wall Street Journal, 30% of today's teens are taking AT LEAST one prescription drug LONG TERM. Most people who are on one drug end up needing additional drugs before too long.
       
       IOW, when these teens hit 30, they are going to be on at least a few drugs, maybe more. We can't sustain this level of medicating society. In a decade, say 2022, society is going to be obese and drugged.
       
       If people think the economy is bad now, imagine what is likely to happen when so many are in poor health at a young age.

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