Okay, I just stumbled on THIS blog. Click the title of this post to go there. (Too bad it seems he hasn't posted since March 2005; seems like he started it up, and then fell off with it; I hope he returns! I just checked; he has some other blogs which are current.)
Holy crap, I had no idea doctors received year-end bonuses from HMO's or the like for keeping costs down.
Conflict of interest, INDEED. When will doctors take back control of health care? I think it will take doctors and patients working together to influence legislation and other things, and a whole LOTTA work and patience and probably money, and maybe some well-conceived lawsuits that will bring to the forefront of the media's attention (hopefully?) various issues related to the whole MESS.
From his previous post, I quote the following:
In early October, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that a patient could sue an HMO. "Where an HMO effectively controls a physician's exercise of medical judgment and that judgment is exercised negligently, the HMO cannot be allowed to claim that the physician is solely responsible for the harm that results," the court ruled.I guess I quote him quoting the Illinois Supreme Court, lol. But Hurrah! It seems to me that for YEARS legislation and court decisions (which, in many cases, effectively legislate from the bench) have PROTECTED HMO's. I am heartened to see at least some things starting to go the other way, but we have to keep this up!
I quote from his blog again:
"HMO accountability is essential," because the organization is a for-profit venture, the court ruled. The court said that HMOs act as health-care providers and not just as insurers since their rules on coverage affect doctors' decisions.EXACTLY. Yippeeee! In your eye, HMO's! Too bad this was just a state court, and not the federal Supreme Court over the whole nation. Still, I hope this is a good start to some much-needed change.
Maybe the HMO's will actually decide it will SAVE them money to actually ALLOW doctors to practice medicine. That just sounds so wrong, HMO's "allowing" doctors, or "disallowing" them to do or not do things? Who went to med school, peeps? Yeah, HMO's have medical people, doctors even, on board, but their salaries are dependent on the HMO doing well, which means restricting the physician's abilities to do their job. Seems like yet another conflict of interest . . . what about the Hippocratic Oath?
Hypocritic Oath? Lol. I'm sure THAT joke has been run into the ground. But it runs through MY mind, just the same.
And I quote again:
In a case that could change the face of HMOs, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreedI'll be keeping a sharp eye on THAT one.
to determine whether an Illinois HMO breached a legal duty to a patient whose
appendix burst during an eight-day wait for a test to diagnose her abdominal
pain.
Apparently many of these he quotes are from the November/December, 1999 (vol. 8, no. 6) of The National Psychologist.
I'll be keeping up with his blog, too, as I obviously am very interested, and very impacted, by all this.
4 comments:
I guess these are old court cases, then, but I hope there has been even more progress since then.
I am certainly for improving patient's rights and care, but I do worry about the negative side-effects of litigation. For instance, insurance can become so high that good people may leave the occupation. I am glad though for the messages that were sent from what has transpired. It really is sickening how health is big business. A distant relative of mine who is in politics and comes from a political family has said, "A person's wealth should not determine a person's health." I hope for such a society some day. I do know that there is care for people who cannot afford it. My second cousin is who has his treatment paid for by government programs has just been assigned to one of the best psychiatrist in town.
Hi, Sarebear,
I saw your posts on the "Elect Mitt Romney" blog. I am a graduate student in Clinical Psychology at the Univ. of Kansas. I wanted to suggest that you seek out psychological services through the Clinical Psychology program of a school near you. They work on a sliding fee scale. The services are often very good because the students work under a Ph.D. level psychologist.
I think HMO's are great and work great for health care when needed in a medical emergency.
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