Wednesday, May 30, 2007

"Physician shortage"

You are a physician and as such probably familiar with multiple choice questions.
Here are a few true and false questions for you.

1. The gas prices are raising because we have either an oversupply of gas - or a decreased demand.
True or false?

2. The prices for computers and computer parts and accessories are going down because we have a shortage of manufacturing facilities.
True or false?

3. Real estate prices increased over the last 30 years because we have an oversupply of land, especially water front.
True or false?

4. Physician reimbursements have decreased continuously for the last 25 years because we have a shortage of physicians.
True or false?

5. The HMOs want to keep the number of physicians to a minimum, so that they can continue to pay less and less.
True or false?

You get the picture. I still cannot understand how some of my colleagues can be so incomprehensively stupid that they read about "decreasing reimbursements" and "physician shortage" in the same journal or magazine without wondering if it makes sense. I know we are notoriously bad in business matters, but do we have to be THAT bad and ignorant?

Close a few medical schools, improve the quality of training.
We need less physicians, more nurse practitoners and physician assistants. Tell someone.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is such a good blog. It is so true that all these HMOs want more and more physician to be trained so they don't have tough time hiring physician and they can whip them the way they like.

I think we physicians should unite and resist such things but unfortunately few of us are hired by this big HMOs with lucrative titles of VP and Directors and they are paid extra to screw the world of medicine and whip us.

Patient care still a big issue and when this corporate sharks are making Medicine a big business and worried about their profits patient care will continue to be a big issue.

Caring Doc