Does Quality Matter?
As you know, I have droned on and on about quality. I have hammered the powers that be about it because it is indefinable. It is in the eye of the beholder. Unfortunately, that has not stopped the idiots in the gov’t, insurance companies, and the hospitals from using it as a way to penalize or bonus doctors. Don’t get me wrong, it is always important to improve the system but show me some proof that using “quality” indicators has ever done that. Here is a new study showing exactly what I am talking about. The authors of a study in the Annals of Family Medicine state:
“Although there are associations between clinical quality and measures of patient experience, the two domains of care quality remain predominantly distinct,” the authors write.
In other words, there is little correlation between quality of care assessed by clinical measures versus by patient experience. Bring that to your administrators. See how quickly they ignore it. And then keep pressing. Your survival, as a doctor, depends on it.
The problem is that we, as physicians and healers lost control of the practice of medicine in the 1990s and became progressively marginalized. Unless and until we have control of what we do and how we do it (yes, we used to enjoy these privileges), we will become unnecessary. Boutique practices and refusal to participate in ANY third-party reimbursements are the current defenses. By law, we are not allowed to organize or form groups of opposition to being dominated by non-treating administrators and their like. We allowed it to happen. How can we become whole, again? Does anybody remember what being a doctor is?