April 5th, 2010 by Stanley Feld, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion
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By Stanley Feld MD, FACP, MACE
Physicians in practice work hard and have little time for political and legal trickery. They assume their leadership will look out for their interests while they take care of patients.
The problem is that physicians do not have effective leadership, explaining the difficulties practicing physicians have every day with the healthcare insurance industry, hospital administrators, the government and the threat of liability. Most physicians are caring professionals who are not looking to rip off anyone. Physicians do expect reasonable compensation commensurate with their training, level of expertise and level of responsibility.
I recently presented a physician income survey to a group of corporate executives. The executives were astonished by the level of physician income relative to their level of responsibility.
The unanimous reaction of these corporate executives was the average physician’s income was that of a low mid-level manager. It is true some practice specialties earn more but the average income of practicing physicians is not commensurate with their knowledge and responsibility. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Repairing the Healthcare System*
April 5th, 2010 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Announcements, Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion
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President Obama likes to shake things up. He has named Dr. Donald Berwick to head the Medicare and Medicaid Agency known as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). This is a huge government agency with a budget of over $800 BILLION a year. That is more than most countries in the world have. Dr. Berwick would be a major force in implementing the new health laws and changing Medicare to be more efficient and cost effective.
The average person probably doesn’t know who Dr. Don Berwick is, but he is a big name in the healthcare industry. A pediatrician by training, he is the president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and is a national leader on quality and patient safety. By telling stories that people can relate to, he is a transformational leader for reducing hospital errors and reducing variability in care. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
April 1st, 2010 by Richard Cooper, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
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Readers interested in the relationships between poverty and healthcare will want to read several new postings on the Web.
One is an article about my Rhoades Lecture at the Wayne County Medical Society in Detroit, “Poverty and Healthcare in America.” It is posted on the World Socialist Web Site.
Second is by James Marks, MD, MPH, Vice President of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, entitled “The Poor Feel Poorly.” It is posted on the Huffington Post site.
Third is “Health and Healthcare in America’s Poorest City,” a tragic and dramatic portrayal of America’s failures to its own in Detroit, also on the World Socialist Web Site.
Finally, here is a link to a collection of papers on social inequalities in health by the McArthur Network on SES and Health, published by the New York Academy of Medicine under the title, “Biology of Disadvantage.”
*This blog post was originally published at PHYSICIANS and HEALTH CARE REFORM Commentaries and Controversies*
March 25th, 2010 by Jon LaPook, M.D. in Better Health Network, Expert Interviews, Health Policy, News, Video
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With the passage of healthcare reform, an estimated thirty two million new patients will try to find primary care doctors. That’s not going to be so easy because we already face a shortage of primary care doctors and about 13,000 more will be needed to take care of those newly eligible for insurance.
According to the American Medical Association, there are about 312,000 primary care doctors practicing in the United States. That includes family medicine, general practice (GP), internal medicine, and pediatrics. (In addition, there are 43,000 ob-gyn’s who also may serve as primary care doctors.) The estimate that another 13,000 will be needed comes from a study done by the Robert Graham Center for Policy Studies in Family Medicine and Primary Care in partnership with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
Sixty five million Americans already live in areas that don’t have enough primary care doctors. And relief is not on the way anytime soon. It takes 5 to 8 years for a first year medical student to be trained as a primary care doctor. And the trend for budding doctors over the past decade has been away from primary care and towards more lucrative specialties. Read more »
March 5th, 2010 by BobDoherty in Announcements, Better Health Network, Health Policy
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Last week, I was honored to learn that the ACP Advocate blog was selected by voters in a national competition as the Best Health Policy/Ethics blog of 2009. Yesterday, ACP issued a news release announcing the award, in which I am quoted as saying that the blog “seeks to inform and entertain readers and to elicit thoughtful commentary from across the political spectrum, not just from ACP members but from others with an interest in health policy.”
Awards and recognition are nice, but what I enjoy most is making readers aware of interesting ideas, studies, and commentary that otherwise might not have come to your attention. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The ACP Advocate Blog by Bob Doherty*
