Blasting the Bogus PCMH Concept
I need to give props out to Amy Rosenthal MD from NC. This was a letter to Medical Economics in October where she shreds the PCMH concept. Above is the screen shot but the highlights are:
- In my experience what was supposed to be patient centered was actually data centered
- It put layers of staff between me and my patients
- Dr. Holly highlighted “listening to a patient and treating the whole person” as key to the medical home. This is absurd. A practice does need to have a PCMH label to treat patients with respect and as individuals
- While PCMH sounds like the latest, greatest thing, it is much ado about not much, and in my experience impedes the doctor/patient relationship
Great job, Amy! How about you leave the dark side and join the DPC movement where you will actually accomplish the right goals with the right values?
The AAFP’s unceasing, mindless promotion of the PCMH is probably the best example we have of a medical society declaring open war on its membership.
No smaller practices could possible afford this program even if they wanted to at $100,000 to maintain. And is there any evidence that this is so much better than a good established family practice? Don’t think so.
MiniLuv. The Ministry of Love, in Oldspeak. Orwell created this organ of the State for correction of error by the populace.
When you see propaganda – often disguised as helpful advice for idiots too dumb to pour mud out of a boot – you can look beneath it to see some grisly facts. Something is going on that has frightened the Leadership, and they need to enforce something too perverse to come out and say directly.
“PCMH” is just that sort of propaganda. It pretends to teach doctors and healthcare workers a “new way” not to treat patients like sh”t. The pretense is that doctors and healthcare workers DO treat patients like sh”t because of ignorance. That pretense saves the Leadership from having to speak the truth.
Dr. Holly highlighted “listening to a patient and treating the whole person” as key to the medical home. That advice is as useful as some overstuffed Doctor Phil advising in relationship counseling, “Never, never strike your partner with a closed fist.”
If you ARE striking your partner in a relationship with a closed fist, is is usually the sign that the relationship is terminally ill and should end. It is not from the lack of information.
The pretense in the “Dr. Phil” example is that spousal abuse is a relationship error, not criminal violence. The pretense in the PCMH concept is that the process of the care of the patient in American healthcare is not being destroyed by great forces for incredible profit, and this process is not permitted to be interrupted.
Given that American healthcare is being torn apart, what merry dance should be done to make it better? Such questions are unpleasant, even to the most indoctrinated – and that’s why Propaganda exists.