(Snippets from the frontline)
Bad news
As a physician, giving bad news is not an easy task.
In the past, the hardest thing to tell a patient was they have cancer; the disease they faced was incurable; or they would soon die. Nowadays, disheartening words are the insurance company will not pay; the drug is not covered; or you must be discharged from the hospital.
Times have changed.
With the business takeover of healthcare, decision-making criteria is used to enhance their self-serving bottom line while quality suffers. Hospitalized patients are whisked through a conveyor belt of services, quickly triaged home or to a nursing home, while time for compassion and empathy from doctors and nurses has been eliminated.
Communication is minimal, with families asked to make spur of the moment decisions affecting their loved one’s future and quality of life.
The public has been propagandized that out-of-control medical costs can be minimized using business tactics, but in reality these savings are going into the pockets of profiteers in the form of mega-salaries, bonuses, and retirement plans.
The bad news I give now: The American people have been deceived.
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
Gene,
I am currently in the middle of this medical mess since all medicine goes through UR review since 2018. Someone who knows nothing about a persons medical history are the ones who are deciding whether you should be using the medications that have been prescribed. Utilization Review also decides whether the test doctors order are necessary. Most all is based on financial based decision on the insurance side.
Gene:
Eastern healing such as acupressure or acupuncture are not seen as healing medicine, and that’s a shame. I took a medication not a long time ago, and I lost many of my hair from it. The doctor knew the eventual side effect and finally resigned to prescribe that product to me. We live in a world of everything should be treated with a pill, and the insurances pay for it.