The time has come. The time has come for patients to know how dangerous the state of health care has become and to finally do something about it. I’m ticked off. So ticked off that I’m writing this in between office patients, and I really try very hard to prevent my patients from waiting. Apparently insurance companies feel practicing medicine is as easy as checking off boxes, like hanging chads on a ballot.
I’ve been a practicing cardiologist for eight years now, and my job is becoming increasingly frustrating. Every day I try to help patients by diagnosing and treating them, and sometimes that means ordering diagnostic exams such as nuclear stress tests or echocardiograms. It was one thing when they started barely paying for them about five years ago, but now they have completely handcuffed us by dictating to us when it is or isn’t appropriate to perform one.
And how do they know this? Are they coming to the office and examining and speaking to the patient and obtaining detailed histories like I am? No. They are checking off boxes on a sheet of paper. The patient has now been downgraded to nothing more than an ID number and a questionnaire. And if enough boxes aren’t checked for their criteria, then you don’t qualify for the test the doctor feels you should have performed.
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