Is Healthcare running you?

If you have been in the medical world for a while, you may feel like the government and insurance companies are trying to snuff out your practice with "red tape" and government mandates. Ridiculous requirements are being enforced in an effort to delay your payments or even keep you from getting paid at all. The frustrations of being in health care is a struggle. Medicare and Medicaid doctors are hiring consultants to meet the metric requirements needed to keep them from being fined or maintain/increase revenue . Is this okay? I feel it has gone too far. Maybe a bonus to make metric's, but not fined. There's a good book I think everyone should read. It's called "Who moved my cheese". It's about 2 groups of mice, both have an equal amount of cheese. Each group eats the cheese, group A realizes the cheese will not last forever. Group B, keeps eating blissfully. Group A sees the need for change before they run out of cheese. Group B runs out of cheese and does not realize where all the cheese went. While group A is searching for new cheese, they find more than they'll eat in a lifetime. Group B looks for someone to blame. The moral of the story, recognize change and adapt before it's too late.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying to quit your job or anything, but there might be a better way of doing things. Changing business model could mean the difference in doing less work, better health care for your patients, and increase revenue. Running a Medicare/Medicaid practice is profitable. But is becoming less profitable each year, harder to get paid, adding more requirements and more government departments to deal with to stay in compliance. Those people have to get paid some how. It's probably going to be a fee you have to pay someway or another. Eventually, you will end up working for a hospital, just so you don't have to be responsible for keeping up with the red tape. You could join or form a doctors group. By partnering, at least you don't have to do it alone. But even those can be difficult to manage. You could be in a group you don't agree with, or worse. Being in a partnership is like being married. You could stop taking Medicare/Medicaid all together. Your first year might be rough, but then you may see you're making more money and working less the next year. But if the service you provide is mostly covered by Medicare / Medicaid...you're stuck!

What if there was something like a union. Like a Union of Healthcare Providers (UOHP). The group would make voted on demands to the government, or will just stop taking Medicare and Medicaid. I'm just spit-balling here, but one of the demands could be the removal of metrics or fines associated to them. The UOHP and all of its members could have a voice in how they are governed. After all, we do live in the United States. This is supposed to be the people's government. If enough doctors joined, it could make a difference. Something for sure needs to change, it's not going to get easier.

Author: Brent Luyet

Share

Customer Login Close

Email:
Password:

Copyright ©2024 MedTrio. All Rights Reserved