IT’S HEALTH INSURANCE, NOT SICK INSURANCE
I know many of you are confused by the current National Health Care situation. I totally understand. I was on a committee reading through the several thousand pages of the act. And I am confused. Many things, like certain medications, oxygen, wheelchairs, and life-care devices are no longer covered. Eye, dental, chiropractic acupuncture care are not included. Many doctors have chosen to not participate to the degree that hospitals are now employing doctors to cover the need.
One stat is that 60% of medical doctors are now hospital employees. One Orange county hospital is paying around 100K/year for doctors. That is far, far less than what they were making in private practice. The hospitals provide staffing, insurance coverage, malpractice insurance.
It sounds like a great deal, but for whom? An employee pretty much has to carry out the policy of the employer. My personal MD explained that she had to have a billable diagnoses requiring/suggesting further expensive and invasive tests. My billable diagnosis was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
There is absolutely no evidence that I have anything close to that often fatal disease. The normal tests would be several simple and inexpensive procedures that I could do in MY office. But no. She wanted me to get a CT-scan which would expose me to hundreds of times the radiation of a chest x-ray. Go figure. She is an employee of Memorial Hospital!
Be careful of the so called billable diagnoses. If you are uncertain talk to me.
How common is this ploy? I recently talked to a person who got a billable diagnoses. She works for a private practice MD. There is absolutely no evidence that this person has the so called diagnosis. The hospital driven computers would require great invasive testing for something that doesn’t exist. Be careful.
Well, I guess I am on my soap box! It is so frustrating to be a health care provider when the rest of the world is pushing sick care.
Besides billable diagnosis, watch out for the nonsense of Under Observation! This means that you are going to end up in the hospital for up to 3 days. Insurance, medicare, medical and socialized medicine health coverage does not pay for this. The average cost of a day in the hospital without any procedures being performed is $1,500 to 2,000/day. That is 10 visits to see me! That is almost a year’s worth of once-a month care.
Hmmmm, sorry for the rant. Please, please take care of your health. Do exercise. Do eat carefully, do drink a quart of water for every 50 pounds. Do stop the tobacco, caffeine, alcohol white flour, white sugar use. Do what you have to do to get off as many medications as possible. Their cost is going up in price. As much as 4 times! Do get adjusted. Do come see me. Let’s keep you healthy in these times until the system is worked out and sick care become health care. |
I had asked Master Card to LOWER my credit line. They told me they couldn’t do it because I was deceased! This is the second time they have made me deceased. So we went thru the process of proving that I was still alive and kicking. If it is anything like that last time, I will get a letter of apology in a few weeks offering to increase my credit limit!! What does it take to be heard? 