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Imagine going to your favorite restaurant.
You are greeted at the door by the hostess, who seats you and takes your drink order. You order through your favorite waiter, Andrew, who recommends the special of the day: prime rib with a dinner salad and a chocolate torte for dessert. Soon after, the food is brought out and it is delicious! You have time to enjoy your food. You then receive the bill and pay for your meal, returning to your home satisfied, all your dining needs met.
You gotta hand it to our Health Department. They are laser focused on this one. They want 85% of payments made to doctors by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to be linked to clinical quality measures within the next two years.
Moreover, I suspect the Health Department is still giddy from Congress passing a new healthcare bill earlier this month. The legislation implements a number of controversial things for a nation built on the premise of freedom, but one of these is to push medical providers into unproven “alternative payment organizations” in order to move away from what has become known as fee-for-service.
I’m taking back Medicine.
If you didn’t know it left or that someone stole it, I’ll give you a pass. Medicine has been disguised for a long time now. And, when you leave the scene in camouflage, you often go unnoticed.
Medicine is supposed to be the science or practice of diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease. I love medicine. There’s so much to learn. Lots of complexities and so many people to help. Medicine gives me an avenue to serve, because if we don’t have our health, what do we have? Illness. And, none of us want that.
I’ve trained to be a physician. I’ve learned lots of things that can help you with sickness. But, in order to do this, THEY have to let me practice. And, yes, THEY are the people who have taken Medicine.
This is important to you. Trust me.
If you’re young at heart, it matters because it’s your tax dollars this April. If you’re wiser in years, it directly affects your health and the system you’ve been pumping money into for decades. This is the same medical system that you thought would take care of you later in life. Again, this is about your money and your health, so read on.
You’re 56 years old. You’re one of the 30 million people (give or take a bunch) that you hear have received health insurance in this country as a result of the Affordable Care Act. You are a positive number in the New York Times headlines the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have been wanting you to read. And, this is how it’s working out for you.
When March Madness gets to be too much–when too many commentators impair your watching and too much swagger overshadows the coaching–turn off your television. Head outside with your first grader. Bring a basketball. Find a goal. You’ll absorb more life lessons in twenty minutes shooting baskets with your son than you’ll get in the next twenty years at your job. Give it a try. A few buckets. You won’t regret it.
It has become perhaps the silliest four letters in healthcare: PQRS. It stands for Physician Quality Reporting System. It’s another this and another that created by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). After you read this, you’ll be like me, scratching your head trying to understand why anyone thinks our healthcare system is better under CMS’s leadership.
CMS has setup a thing called PQRS, so physicians across the country can submit data informing the government how well they are practicing medicine. I wish that I could ease your understanding of this acronym by just referring to it as “quality data,” but it no more represents quality than a coin flip. In fact, statistically, a coin flip is probably better. PQRS is like the fisherman explaining to the rancher the type of fish that he caught. Actually, it’s nothing like that. It’s more like the fisherman’s boat explaining to the rancher’s cow the very same thing. Basically, the rancher sums it up: “Ain’t nobody have a clue what’s really going on here.”
Something is new this year, a silver lining among all the madness in healthcare right now. Practicing physicians finally have a choice. We have a voice again in medicine, and you will know who to thank for it in a minute.
A whole lot of fishy stuff has been going on for quite a while regarding physician board certification in this country, and it’s only fitting that the Ivory Tower is starting to sway under pressure. A medical license in the United States is granted by law, but board certifications are received from independent organizations– many of which now appear to be glaringly similar to country clubs with odd requirements and pricey dues.
The American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), essentially a subsidiary of the much larger American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), is one group in recent years that has generated astronomical revenues through certifying physicians. I’ve previously explained how certification might be the universal scam, but just know that more than 22,000 physicians have now signed a petition challenging ABIM’s practices.
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