Profile

Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
09 April 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
An Informed Atheist Re-Addresses Christianity
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
A Progressive Reform Program for America
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Supply Side and Libertarians Are Wrong and Not Supported by the Data
10 March 2018 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
How Income Inequality Injures People and the Economy
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
A Democratic Reform Program for America
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Supply Side Libertarians Are Wrong and Not Supported by the Data
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Economic Ignorance
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part VI)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part V)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part IV)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part III)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part II)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Rise of Income Inequality (Part I)
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Racial Hatred Is Confused
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
What To Do About North Korea
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
On Neoliberalism
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Ban Hate Marches and Assemblies
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
On Miss Piggy and Mr. Pork
22 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
The Demise of the Democratic Party
09 August 2017 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
On Elitism

The Doctor Business

30 August 2014 | Pago Pago, American Samoa
Kimball Corson
How Doctors Have Damaged their Medical Profession

Doctors are whining about not getting enough respect from the public, "patients, physician colleagues and administrators," not being able to spend enough time with patients "because of paperwork," their lack of status in the community, about how they have become " impatient, occasionally indifferent, at times dismissive or paternalistic" toward patients, about their flat or decreasing incomes, about their low morale, about all the mandated CYA in the practice of medicine and about the managed care generally and HMO's in particular.

I submit this viewpoint doesn't understand the true position of doctors.

The real problem is their excessive efforts to get more income are failing. In 1940, in inflation-adjusted 2010 dollars, the mean income for U.S. physicians was about $50,000. By 1970, it was close to $250,000--nearly six times the median household income. However, after 1970 doctors' incomes started to slip, notwithstanding the the AMA imposed shortage of doctors. In 1970, the average inflation-adjusted income of general practitioners was $185,000. In 2010, it was $161,000, Seeing more patients is what many doctors did.to hustle more income. But make no mistake about it -- the desire for more income is at the heart of doctors' problems.

Reports of fraudulent billing practices and schemes and also CYA waste in the form of tests and procedures by doctors became rampant. A congressional investigation found that in 1974, surgeons performed 2.4 million unnecessary operations, costing nearly $4 billion and resulting in nearly 12,000 deaths. In 1969, the president of the New Haven County Medical Society warned his colleagues "to quit strangling the goose that can lay those golden eggs." In an effort to increase their incomes, doctors saw more patients, spent less time with them and became impatient with, indifferent toward and dismissive of those patients. They ran unnecessary tests and performed unnecessary procedures -- all to earn more income and as CYA for malpractice suits.

The managed care programs which resulted from these practices curtailed their deliberate mismanagement efforts to get more income. That included more documentation about how they exercised their medical judgment, that is, the increase paperwork about which they whine.

These are the real reasons doctors now have less status and respect from the community,administrators and others, why they are frustrated, why they have the attitudes toward patients they do, why they spend so little time with them and why their medical judgment is being second guessed at every step along the way and carefully documented. And why they are unhappy now.
Comments
Vessel Name: Altaira
Vessel Make/Model: A Fair Weather Mariner 39 is a fast (PHRF 132), heavily ballasted (43%), high-aspect (6:1), stiff, comfortable, offshore performance cruiser by Bob Perry that goes to wind well (30 deg w/ good headway) and is also good up and down the Beaufort scale.
Hailing Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ
Crew: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
About:
Kimball Corson: I am a 75 year old solo sailor, by choice. However, I did take on a personable, but high maintenance female kitten, now a full grown cat, named KiKiPoo when she is sweet, or KatKatPo after she has just killed something like a bird or bat. [...]
Extra:
Although I was a lawyer and practiced law with good success for thirty years, creating significant new law, I never really believed in the law, the politics of law or in the over reaching self-interest of most lawyers I met. Too much exposure to Nietzsche and other good and seriously thoughtful [...]
Altaira's Photos - Main
No items in this gallery.

Profile

Who: Kimball Corson. Text and Photos not disclaimed or that are obviously not mine are copyright (c) Kimball Corson 2004-2016
Port: Lake Pleasant, AZ