Back Surgery Marketing

The Wall Street Journal did a nice piece about how a small California hospital is cranking out the back surgeries for profit.  It is such a black eye for doctors but it needs to be exposed. Tri-City Regional Medical Center billed workers’ compensation insurers $65 million in 2010, up from less than $3 million three years earlier.    The story is a sad tale of marketing, greed, shady salesmen, kickbacks to doctors and chiropractors, and price gouging.   Healthcare has enough problems.  Being a doctor is a noble cause.  These kind of stories need to continue to clean out the bad apples who make us all look bad.   And I am not sure that the tag line for Tri-City works for them so much anymore.   I think I they broke their promise.