Dear Congressman Brooks,
As a practicing family physician, I plead for help against what I can best characterize as Washington’s war against doctors.
The medical profession has never before remotely approached today’s stress, work hours, wasted costs, decreased efficiency, and declining ability to focus on patient care.
In our community alone, at least 6 doctors have left patient care for administrative positions, to start a concierge practice, or retire altogether.
Doctors are smothered by destructive regulations that add costs, raise our overhead and ‘gum up the works,’ making patient treatment slower and less efficient, thus forcing doctors to focus on things other than patient care and reduce the number of patients we can help each day.
I spend more time at work than at any time in my 27 years of practice and more of that time is spent on administrative tasks and entering useless data into a computer rather than helping sick patients.
Doctors have been forced by ill-informed bureaucrats to implement electronic medical records (“EMR”) that, in our four doctor practice, costs well over $100,000 plus continuing yearly operational costs . . . all of which does not help take care of one patient while driving up the cost of every patient’s health care.
Washington’s electronic medical records requirement makes our medical practice much slower and less efficient, forcing our doctors to treat fewer patients per day than we did before the EMR mandate.
To make matters worse, Washington forces doctors to demonstrate ‘meaningful use’ of EMR or risk not being fully paid for the help we give.
In addition to the electronic medical records burden, we face a mandate to use the ICD-10 coding system, a new set of reimbursement diagnosis codes.
The current ICD-9 coding system uses roughly 13,000 codes. The new ICD-10 coding system uses a staggering 70,000 new and completely different codes, thus dramatically slowing doctors down due to the unnecessary complexity and sheer numbers of codes that must be learned.
The cost of this new ICD-10 coding system for our small practice is roughly $80,000, again driving up health care costs without one iota of improvement in health care quality.
Finally, doctors face nonpayment by patients with ObamaCare. These patients may or may not be paying their premiums and we have no way of verifying this. No business can operate with that much uncertainty.
On behalf of the medical profession, I ask that Washington stop the implementation of the ICD-10 coding system, repeal the Affordable Care Act, and replace it with a better law written with the input of real doctors who will actually treat patients covered by it.
America has enjoyed the best health care the world has ever known. That health care is in jeopardy because physicians cannot survive Washington’s ‘war on doctors’ without relief.
Eventually the problems for doctors will become problems for patients, and we are all patients at some point.
Sincerely yours,
Dr. Marlin Gill of Decatur, Alabama
ObamaCare wasn’t designed to work well or succeed and part of its agenda is the transformation of doctors into nothing more than employees of The State. The best way to do that is to make private practice onerous and unworkable until only the “correct thinking” kind of person would desire to be a State doctor.
h/t Mark Levin
Finally, doctors face nonpayment by patients with ObamaCare. These patients may or may not be paying their premiums and we have no way of verifying this. No business can operate with that much uncertainty.
– Which, of course, was the plan from the get-go, because, after all, whats a vote pandering handout good for if it isn’t truly buying a vote.
– Apparently the good doctor has managed to miss the aims and goals of the braindead deadbeat morons of the Progressive gaggle and Dem party from day one.
I think Drudge noted earlier today that Ezekial Emmanuel let the cat out of the bag regarding Obamacare meaning to force more and more people out of their existing policies.
I had a 17-yr-old Brit, high on pot, tell me last night on Twitter that single-payer (where he gets his healthcare for FREEEEEE) is Obama’s goal, that Obamacare is just a waystation.
FEATURE NOT BUG!
As if everyone didn’t already know. As if it were any more surprising than Obama’s about-face on SSM.
I would contend the good doctor that wrote to his congressman already has a great way to fight Obamacare and avoid the government paperwork monster: Cash customers only.
see also: http://www.surgerycenterok.com
Which is in Leigh’s neck of the woods, I do believe.
I just spent about 5 minutes in the Twitter Gulag. I hadn’t been chatting with anyone in particular.
Random cosmic rays flipping bits, looks like.
Go crowdfund the indie Gosnell movie. Go! Go!
oh dear earth hour is being ignored this year
NO HOUR, NO POWER
Yep Blake, as the good doc said
Just how long Leftists will allow such a thing when they consider “healthcare” a “right” remains to be seen.
nr, just wait until those “no power for an hour” people get a taste of “no power for a couple of weeks” due to social and economic upheaval.
Aw geez, IWonPenPhone doesn’t practice war, he’s all about the love. Just look at how he gives Vlad the Ass-impaler a reach around by begging him to withdraw his troopies from the Ukrainian border. What could make a Russian dicktater happier than to have an American douchebag begging him to relent while he holds America down on her knees? Vlad must be sitting on cloud nine right about now.
Darleen, I don’t know about you, but I look forward to seeing a slave disguised as a doctor.
It’s a couple hundred miles from here, Blake, but that’s good information to have!
coming soon north korea at night
A Cautionary Tale: Britain Faces Massive Blackouts Due To Green Politics
Vlad has checkmated our feckless leader’s bone-y ass once again.
In addition to the electronic medical records burden, we face a mandate to use the ICD-10 coding system, a new set of reimbursement diagnosis codes.
The October Surprise that Could Cripple the Practice of Medicine
Leigh, I didn’t know it was possible to be 200 miles from anywhere in OK. ;)
Minnesotans used to tell a joke: How do you find your way to Texas? Head south until you smell cow shit. That’s Oklahoma. Continues south until you step in it…that’s Texas.
As an aside, my late father was a proud Okie. Dad was born during the dustbowl, he and his family moved to Oklahoma West, also known as “Bakersfield, CA.”
Heh. we’re on the NE side of OK. The state is divided between the Tulsa (that’s near us) with oil money and country music and OKC where all the stockyards and oil money are.
My mom’s family landed in Tulare, which is Oklahoma West, as well. We’re practically neighbors!
A rehearsal?
See: Shrugged, Atlas – Lights going out in New York