Time for a National Prohibition of the Corporate Practice of Medicine
Mitch Li, MD is a friend and runs Take Medicine Back. He is trying to get things to change and has the petition above. Here are his thoughts:
We need physician signatures on the petition! Anything you can do to help is appreciated. Make sure to tell people NOT to donate:
So, there you have it. I signed it. Did NOT donate. Please consider doing the same.
Have had this with two patients. Same scenario.
Acute back pain. No “red flags”. Symptomatic treatment for a month or so. Month later, pain persisted enough to consider imaging and physical therapy. Started with plain X-rays and referred physical therapy.
Sent off to an X-ray facility owned by a national imaging company, in turn bought out by venture capital.
Not surprising, X-ray normal with mild degerative changes consistent with age. Carry on with treatment and physical therapy.
A week or so later. I receive a note from a Nurse Practitioner. My note is basically repeated, with the same clinical history interview and unremarkable exam aside from pain. Referral to Physical Therapy.
So patient now has two office visit bills, the X-ray bill, and two Physical Therapy referrals.
Complained, they claim it has nothing to do with any corporate takeover. Bull. Decades of patient care and the usual referrals over the years. Radiology getting into the primary care business was not something considered until venture capital got into diagnostic imagine.
Now they have to squeeze every nickel out of a patient.
And this is precisely why the corporate practice of medicine needs to be prohibited at State and National level.
Interesting timing for this. Just last week I read a business news piece on the problems CVS (and Walgreens) is having with understaffing and burnout. Apparently, the true spirit of corporate medicine has enveloped the corporate pharmacies. They are being forced to do more with less; their “procedures” are time-regulated now. They can’t keep up. Customers are suffering and complaining. Staff are trained and then quit quickly. It is SO much of what we’ve been experiencing. The chickens are coming home to roost in all areas of corporate healthcare.
I know a young mother who last week took her 2 year old with a fever and apparent UR infection to a Kroger Little Clinic. The “doctor” advised the Mom that the little girl was too young for antibiotics and sent her home to heal on her own. Mom immediately went from Little Clinic to Children’s Hospital ED. They were alarmed. The child was very infected and dehydrated. They treated the child and warned Mom that if 8 hours show no improvement, bring child back to ED.
Odd the the “Doctor” at Little Clinic had no concerns nor treatment offered.
THIS is what corporate medicine has wrought. It’s criminal.