Essay - Fed Up With the Frustrations, More Doctors Change Course - NYTimes.com

Essay - Fed Up With the Frustrations, More Doctors Change Course - NYTimes.com:
"Not long ago, fed up with what he perceived as a loss of professional autonomy, Dr. Bhupinder Singh, 42, a general internist in New York, sold his practice and went to work part time at a hospital in Queens.

“I’d write a prescription,” he told me, “and then insurance companies would put restrictions on almost every medication. I’d get a call: ‘Drug not covered. Write a different prescription or get preauthorization.’ If I ordered an M.R.I., I’d have to explain to a clerk why I wanted to do the test. I felt handcuffed. It was a big, big headache.”

When he decided to work in a hospital, he figured that there would be more freedom to practice his specialty.

“But managed care is like a magnet attached to you,” he said.

He continues to be frustrated by payment denials. “Thirty percent of my hospital admissions are being denied. There’s a 45-day limit on the appeal. You don’t bill in time, you lose everything. You’re discussing this with a managed-care rep on the phone and you think: ‘You’re sitting there, I’m sitting here. How do you know anything about this patient?’ ”"

But if they were Government Bureaucrats, now that would be intolerable...

BTW, I included this post with the category of Rationing Healthcare because it does become rationing by attrition. Physicians often are so frustrated by the battles they fight hourly with Private Insurers, they cave in and provide less than optimal care.

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