On the Backs of Doctors

Once again we see the deficit will be reduced on the backs of the providers of health care in this country. In the recently passed legislation there will be a super-committee of 6 congressman to agree to 1.2 trillion dollars of cuts by November 23, just three months away. If an agreement is not produced by then there will be automatic cuts to various programs, mostly to defense and medicare. As I have blogged about in other posts, medicare is a failed system of providing health care. All medicare bills that come in get paid promptly without determining the need for the service or investigation for fraud and abuse. It is easier for the feds to borrow or print or tax money than to go after fraud. The government is unable and incapable to monitor for waste and it cannot use the allotted resources effectively and this leads to an enormous amount of funds that go down the toilet. Contrarily, private health care systems are much better at detecting fraud and abuse and are careful with each dollar spent and every test or surgery performed is reviewed prior to being pre-certified. This is in complete distinction to the government who pays now and asks later or usually never.

I have heard of a urologist that used to take a few biopsies when performing prostate examinations. The urologist got smart and decided to open a pathology lab in his office, hire a pathologist to read his biopsies, pay him a salary, and bill medicare directly through his office for pathology services. In essence, he would be taking a cut (no pun intended) for each biopsy performed. Once the pathology lab was up and going the urologist increased his number of biopsies from three or four to over ten. This is so abusive, not to mention how unethical it is for this doctor to puncture and damage a person just for his own financial benefit. But where is the government? Can't they see that the number of biopsies has increased three-fold when the billing was changed to this urologist? A private insurance company would pick this up in a second and question the bill. The government DOES NOT AND CANNOT effectively monitor where it sending its funds. This is just one example of fraud that is rampant in the medicare system.

So what the government will do is to cut fees to all providers across the board. Instead of using the allotted healthcare dollars more effectively they will just lower everyone's fees including the best caregivers as well as the fraudsters and wasters. This is government at its worst and where private companies demonstrate how infinitely more economical they are. I am so pissed off that since I play by the rules I get penalized whereas the unethical fraudsters get off clean and will make up the decreased fees by just taking a few more pieces of their patients prostate.

You will say I should turn these fraudsters in but WHERE IS THE GOVERNMENT? We must turn this function over to private industry to save medicare. It's the only way.