Health care continues to be a hot topic debate. It is estimated that approximately 46 million Americans are uninsured, with another 25 million underinsured. Between 2007 and 2008, one in three Americans were without health care. About 60% of those who reported having no coverage during these periods were unemployed working age adults with Hispanics, men and young adults between 18 and 24 more likely than any other group to lack coverage.
Due to the challenging economic times, many employers have stopped offering health care coverage to their employees while the United States spends 52% more on health care than the next costly nation.
These sobering statistics leave little debate that health care reform must be prioritized and all Americans should have some form of health care that includes preventative medicine and wellness plans. At the heart of this plan must be a dedication to rooting out waste and abuse in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
While the AMA believes in health care reform, they are opposed to creating a public health insurance program that would tie them into reimbursement at the lowered Medicare rates. These issues have left more and more doctors discouraged with their profession.
A 2008 survey released by the Physicians Foundation found that nearly half of U.S. primary care physicians would consider an alternative to their chosen profession. This survey, sent to 270,000 primary care physicians and 50,000 specialists found that 49% of respondents would consider leaving medicine, not because they have too many patients, or long arduous days, but rather because they feel bogged down by the red tape generated by insurance and government agencies.
By the year 2025, the AMA reports that their will be a shortage of primary care doctors in the 35 to 45 thousand range. The Physicians Foundation survey also found that one third of those responding to their survey have closed their practices to Medicare. That leaves a tremendous amount of patients without a doctor.
Many physicians are abandoning their private practices to become employees of their community or affiliated hospital. They work for a yearly salary that may or may not include a bonus package, and their office spaces and employees are paid for by the hospital. This allows doctors to lose the headaches of the day-to day business of medicine and concentrate on seeing their patients and performing procedures without the personal involvement with insurance vendors.
Others are choosing so called boutique practices, where insurance is not accepted and patients pay a yearly or monthly fee for services rendered. If you are a plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills, this may be the way to go, but there are only so many demographic areas in our country that will support this type of practice. In todays economy, patients are having a hard time scraping up the co-payment obligation, without having to pay their physician a yearly retainer.
Basically, a doctor's inability to make his or her private practice a success starts with the lack of any formal business education in medical school or residency. Most doctors are forced to learn to manage a completely foreign environment on the fly and find themselves spending upwards of 25% of their after hours managing the business of medicine. Some medical schools are now proposing that their students obtain an M.B.A. in conjunction with their M.D. While this may help in crunching the numbers, it still leaves a gaping hole when it comes to dealing with insurance regulations, human resources, practice technology and medical software.
Running a medical practice is not rocket science. You don't need an M.B.A. or even a Master's Degree in Health Care Administration to render good health care and to make a good, even great, living doing so. The information contained within this blog will attempt to provide you with the necessary organizational skills and step-by-step instructions for success, whether or not you are starting your first practice or are an associate or parter in an established practice. If you are willing to play a pro-active, intelligent role in the business of medicine, there is no limit to the personal and financial satisfaction you will enjoy.
Tomorrow : Get Organized
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