quote:
It’s the opposite. The US produces about the same number of residency trained physicians as we did in 2000, even though our population has increased. We are in a severe supply demand inversion, and have a severe physician shortage that cuts across all specialties. The only thing keeping prices and costs from reacting accordingly is the artificial cap on reimbursement placed by CMS and, secondarily, private insurance. Doctors have to participate in neither. As soon as enough physicians stop participating in these programs and simply charge a fee for their services, costs will skyrocket. I think it happens in the next 5 years.

There is a fix for that....kick the AMA and the states in the arse and allow nurses and PAs to do things that do not require an MD. Like an appointment every 90 days for a patient on blood pressure meds that have worked for 20 years at the same dosage. Also simply charging a fee for their services will result in patients paying at the point of sell instead of the fraudulent billing to goes on now where they charge for all manner of shite they did not do and in the rare even they get caught they say "oopsy" and everything is forgiven. Given that the industry is over ran with incompetency it would be a fresh start to get rid of them all and start all over again with medicine men.

My 86 year old father goes to about 3 appointments a week. Different doctors, different practices. They prescribe all manner of shite, do all manner of tests, and nothing is ever going to change the fact that the man is 86 years old and overweight and diabetic. But they are constantly conjuring up hope that they have a cure for being 86 years old. He has NEVER complained of knee pain....there is no medical indication that he has any condition which would cause knee pain. He has been scheduled for knee replacement surgery 4 times in the last 9 years. By 4 different doctors and a host of specialists in those practices. Again, none has ever said it would help his knee pain because he has NEVER complained of knee pain and has never been diagnosed with any condition which would cause his knees to be painful. This is just one of many such surgeries and treatments and scams they have tried to rope this poor bastard into. He had cryotherapy for prostate cancer and it destroyed hisablity to maintain bladder control. He was sent to a pain management clinic for bladder spams....for 3 years the poor bastard went and had injections in his spine. For 3 years we asked when he might expect some relief from his bladder spasms. For 3 years a HOST of medical professionals suggested it might be any day. Finally we took him to this clinic and there was a new doctor, fresh from Pakistan, there and I asked him when he might expect some relief from bladder spasms. He said he had no idea, he was being treated for sciatica there and had been for 3 years....a condition he never complained of, was not every diagnosed with, has not been diagnosed with. Finally the ordering physician admitted they had had gotten their wires crossed and he was originally sent to the clinic for pain management via medication....opioids...to which the clinic said they had never been in the business of prescribing and ALL they did was lumbar steroid injections. This clinic was on the verge of ordering a visit to an orthpedic surgeon for sciatica and were very put out when he refused that because his back was fine. This is just a few of the issues the morons have done. It is not isolated, every doctor he has been to from Georgia to Washington State and New Mexico were just as incompetent....it is the entirety of the industry....they spend about 5 minutes with patients, listen to nothing the patient or the family says and can not keep the patients straight in their head. How they do not kill more people is a fricking miracle and one that proves about half if not more of what they do is needless.