Medical Staff Meeting and resolution passed
Tuesday evening was the regular meeting of the Medical Staff of the hospital. These meetings are required for all active medical staff members. They occur every other month and we are required to attend at least half of them throughout the year. This is the only opportunity we have as a medical staff to meet as a group and discuss important topics.
Our Medical Executive Committee members who are our elected leaders meet more frequently and handle the day to day problems and needs of the entire medical staff.
After their February meeting and all the discussions about the commissioners removing the only physician from the Board, the committee decided to propose a resolution. This resolution would be forwarded to the Board of Trustees asking them to solicit the Commissioners to expand the current Board from 7 to 9 members. These additional two members would be physicians. This actually would be in agreement with the consultant’s recommendations as well as a recent article in the Trustee magazine.
The resolution overwhelmingly passed with the 70 or so physicians present. The physicians felt very strongly that with the expansion of the hospital and the changing healthcare environment, we needed more representation at the Board level rather than less.
It will now be up to the Board to take action and forward the resolution and proposal to the Commissioners. If the Commissioners fail to take appropriate action based on the overwhelming support of the Medical Staff, I believe it will clearly state if they really have the best interest of Floyd Memorial in mind.
This is a very important decision that potentially affects all the residents in Floyd County. Stay tuned for the outcome!
Our Medical Executive Committee members who are our elected leaders meet more frequently and handle the day to day problems and needs of the entire medical staff.
After their February meeting and all the discussions about the commissioners removing the only physician from the Board, the committee decided to propose a resolution. This resolution would be forwarded to the Board of Trustees asking them to solicit the Commissioners to expand the current Board from 7 to 9 members. These additional two members would be physicians. This actually would be in agreement with the consultant’s recommendations as well as a recent article in the Trustee magazine.
The resolution overwhelmingly passed with the 70 or so physicians present. The physicians felt very strongly that with the expansion of the hospital and the changing healthcare environment, we needed more representation at the Board level rather than less.
It will now be up to the Board to take action and forward the resolution and proposal to the Commissioners. If the Commissioners fail to take appropriate action based on the overwhelming support of the Medical Staff, I believe it will clearly state if they really have the best interest of Floyd Memorial in mind.
This is a very important decision that potentially affects all the residents in Floyd County. Stay tuned for the outcome!
posted by Anonymous at 5:50 AM
25 Comments:
Saw your letter in the 'bune a couple days ago. If you know any doctors who are leaving the practice of medicine, let me know. We are hiring for warehouse help. Forklift experience helpful but not necessary, we will train. Need to pass physical and drug screen. Approx. $10/hr.
Or, perhaps they could be a social worker in a hospital like my wife(not FMH). Masters degree, license, CEU's, and 20+ years. Pay is well below teachers and RN's. Like the RN who said that some Drs. look down on nurses, social workers have both looking down at them.
Or, perhaps they could have my job. VP of 30+ million distribution company with 45 employees. College degree and 30 years experience. Pay is well under 6 figures.
I am not totally unsympathetic with your position but I sincerely doubt that many physicians are leaving for any of the above positions.
I understand your point, but the difference is that for 75 plus years, physicians training has continually increased along with their expenses. Their salaries and lifestyle have continually diminished.
What other profession has had this same trend consistently over the past 10 years to the degree that primary care medicine has?
Are you saying that physician's salary and lifestyle have continually diminished for 75 years? I must be misreading.
Just to clarify this further. All of the jobs and positions you described have always been very similar in pay, job duties etc. to what you stated. No one thought it would be any different and each job has its own upside and downside.
But each one of them for the most part have actually increased in salary and or benefits over the last 10 years. Most have at least kept up with inflation.
The jobs you describe certainly are not at the same salary as physicians, but they never have been and nobody expected them to be.
I understand your position and with 30+ years at your company I hope you at least have a pension that comes with the dedication since the salary is low. My question would be whether someone in your job typically makes more or if your particular job has continually declined in salary. If it has continually declined over the past 10 years from where it had always been, I would wonder why you weren't also looking at how to change.
There also seems to be a double standard in some peoples thoughts. When a businessman, private owner, or lawyer expands into new ventures and other financial opportunities, people believe they are great businessmen, but when a physician decides to invest in other opportunities, they often are referred to as being greedy. Why the difference in thought?
If you think that doctors' econmic situations have uniquely been damaged over the past 10 to 20 years, then you aren't thinking about (just for starters):
1. Steel Workers
2. Textile Workers
3. Airline employees
4. Non-union factory workers
5. Aerospace workers
In all of the above cases, not only have real wages dropped, but tens of thousands of jobs in those fields have disappeared either through technology improvements or movement off-shore.
I can't remember the last time I read about mass layoffs of doctors and, as a group, medical doctors remain far better compensated than almost any other profession.
This is America and there is nothing wrong with pursuing economic success. But, please!! Let's save our tears for some other group.
Specifically addressing your question.
Salaries and lifestyles for primary care physicians have declined consistently in the last 10 years for those choosing and entering this career path.
Education requirements, training, regulations and expenses have continually increased for at least the last 75 years consistently.
To anonymous,
I acknowledge that there are many other people affected by everything you listed.
But, again, why is there always an outpouring of sympathy and concern for these other groups, but as soon as physicians make a similar claim, we get this exact type of response from so many people.
Why is our financial decline different? Is this not a double standard?
I sympathize for every person who works harder every year and makes less money. It is not right no matter what field your in and especially when it is because of things the government or others do and you have no control.
I have been with this company for 20 years. The previous 10 were in the same industry. 20 years ago a man asked to come with him and help start this company. I took a 20% salary cut to do it. No ownership. Pension is my contributions to a 401(k) and the company's 4%.
Not saying that I agree with the following but perhaps it was just time for physician pay to peak and resettle. Ask unions about that or a lot of other workers for that matter.
My pay goes up and down according the profits of the company. You don't think our expenses go up? Health insurance. We use over 250,000 gallons of diesel a year to deliver our products.
I don't have a problem with doctors investing in other opportunities. Sometimes the transparency needs to be improved if it is a health related opportunity. I don't necessarily have a problem with physician pay period. Although I was in a home a couple of years ago that the property taxes had to be more than wife grosses a year. Seriously. And for those reading it was NOT HB's house but was owned by a doctor.
I think a central question to be answered is why physicians consider themselves to be deserving of a pay scale that will never be possible for the large majority of workers in a large majority of professions.
There are other professions that require extensive advanced training, continuous research and life-long learning. Why should the elevated pay scale apply only to certain professions?
While I think all citizens have a common enemy in the current practices of some insurance and pharmaceutical companies, it's difficult to seriously entertain lifestyle complaints from a demographic that on the whole enjoys wealth that other well-educated citizens will never experience. How much more accessible would health care be if a majority of doctors agreed to work for a wage that was more in tune with other professions?
MD=$ isn't necessarily a formula that equates to better healthcare for a majority of people. I don't think physicians should be asked to sacrifice much of their lives for peanuts but, by the same token, I don't think an adjustment to a more equitable pay scale is a bad idea either.
HB: I am puzzled by this comment of yours:
"It is not right no matter what field your in and especially when it is because of things the government or others do and you have no control."
In the United States, more than in most other industrialized nations, a relatively free market sets prices, wages and job opportunities. I don't know how you determine the value of your work any other way than by the price agreed upon by a willing buyer and a willing seller. You may not like the reimbursement rates you are offered by insurers, but why should they pay you more than they have to in order to get you to participate as one of their providers? Doctors having to work for a less lavish income hardly compares with thousands of jobs at GE moving to Mexico or Asia because, it turns out, that the skills required to build a washing machine can be bought for less money there than here. We may not like the impact on individuals, but our free market economy has served us well over the years. You only have to look at France, Italy and Germany to see what happens to an economy that articially props up wages and benefits. Those countries have priced themselves out of many world markets and have skyrocketing unemployment as a result.
Based upon some of your other postings, I would have thought that you supported a free market economy.
I do support the free market. But physicians cannot collectively bargain as others, we cannot form a union or group together in any fashion. We cannot own any other business associated with medicine that we refer to. We cannot discuss fee schedules and Insurance companies will not even give us an entire fee schedule for our services, but only a sampling to review. These are all illegal.
On the other hand, insurance companies have virtual monopolies and know exactly what the other is paying for services. The government sets the Medicare rate that every insurer than uses for their fee schedules.
This isn't exactly the free market.
The only negotiating power we have is to threaten to drop the insurance carrier. That is not good for our patients or their health care.
To Bluegill, what salary is more in tune with other professions and who is going to set it. What profession requires each student to complete 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school and than 3-11 years of training in residency before you even have the opportunity to make more than $30000/year. Physicians are minimally 29 years old before they can begin practicing on their own and making what you evidently believe is exhorbitant salary in primary care medicine.
In keeping with Anon 1:44, as for Medicare reimbursement rates, you are not required to accept Medicare. Of course you have to find enough patients who can pay their own way. Same way with insurance. Lots of luck.
Actually, I think one the biggest problems with healthcare in the US is the way health insurance has been handled. We workers have really no idea what it costs. For years years health insurance was paid for by companies. Now most of have to pay a part but still not what the total premium is. We also think a visit to a doctor costs $20 because that is what the copay is. We, as consumers, have been too insulated.
You have absolutely nailed the real problem.
For too long, patients have not been directly responsible for paying for the service they recieved.
This is the only service industry that is like this. Every other service industry usually requires payment when the service is rendered.
Placing the responsibility back on the individual would cause drastic changes in the entire healthcare industry; and all of them for the better.
Entitlement programs whether they be government or employer driven has caused and exacerbated the current problems.
Wow!! We agree on something.
Will you marry me....Oh no wait..that isn't going to work.....
Another good discussion today. Sorry for getting you off track on your recent postings. Impulse control, you know.
HB, you just described what it takes to become a college professor: a four year degree followed by six to eight years of advanced study (more than an MD) and then several years of proving oneself in their late twenties/early thirties (at a pay rate lower than a lot of residencies I might add) so that you may or may not eventually be awarded tenure and a full professorship at a median salary that's roughly $88,000 less than family practice physicians when surveyed nationally.
I'll ask again: Why are medical professionals entitled to salaries that are much higher than others with similar education? For that matter, why are medical professionals with much less education and experience than those in other fields entitled to higher salaries?
If patients are made more responsible for medical payments, I think doctors would have to learn to live a very different lifestyle. It's hard to make a living from dead and/or bankrupt patients.
Bluegill,
I think there would be several people and companies in the healthcare industry that would have rude awakenings. Probably why we will not see the changes.
Just to be clear, I was not advocating putting the entire burden on the individual. If instead of my company paying $300/month directly to the insurance company, put that money into an account that the worker has access to to pay for insurance, etc. My employees(sometimes even myself) think that their indvidual health policy costs $25/month(their contribution). Most people have no idea, not even close.
Gotcha, Iamhoosier. I think most people (including me) are disconnected from that paricular reality. I was very much reconnected with it, though, a couple of years ago when a 36-hour stay in FMH resulted in a $10,000 bill. With the exceptions of an MRI and some blood work, I received no treatment other than a couple of routine exams, about 30-40 minutes of total doctor time, assuming they could read the test results from two tests in twenty minutes. Most of my time was spent waiting and listening to the redneck in the bed next to me explain how happy he was that I had replaced the black man that had formerly occupied my bed. Ridiculous.
To top it all off, my insurance company only had to pay about $6K to take care of the bill. If I had been uninsured, though, you can bet I'd have been out the full amount. Also ridiculous.
If doctors and hospitals had to depend on real market value for their services, they'd go under quickly and/or a large segment of the population would just go without healthcare, which I don't see as beneficial to anybody individually and certainly not to the whole.
One of the many things I don't understand, though, is why high salaries for some are considered perfectly normal market-based incentives but a healthcare plan for lower wage workers is classified as an entitlement program.
Bluegill,
Not sure where your disdain comes from regarding physicians or other healthcare workers and I apologize if I have offended you. Most college professors need a PhD. and time to acquire tenure and many begin their careers with a masters as they work towards their PhD.
This is usually 4 years of post college work and sometimes less.
Many continue with other educational activities but it is not always required for them to work in their career choice.
Neither College professors nor any other job deal with life and death decisions every day.
What is the worst that will happen if a college professor makes a mistake?
Our mistakes kill people and there is no undoing that mistake.
How often is a college professor going to be sued, or have to be on-call or explain and give horrible news to family members on patients.
Let's compare apples to apples.
If you really believe there is no difference in what we do compared to other professions, then we really will never begin to come to any rational understanding.
Regarding:
"Our mistakes kill people and there is no undoing that mistake.
How often is a college professor going to be sued, or have to be on-call or explain and give horrible news to family members on patients.
Let's compare apples to apples."
That pretty much describes a police officer...and most of them earn under $40k.
That wasn't a serious comparison but I think the point that is being made is that doctors have lived in an artificial environment for a long time in this country and they are starting to see their profession coming more in line with what happens in other countries. Doctors equally trained and responsible in Canada and Europe would love to earn the average salary of an American doctor.
Lots of workers in other industries have had to come to terms with changes in the economy. Doctors are being impacted similarly, but they are starting from a much more advantageous position.
I don't have a particular disdain for healthcare professionals. Much like professors, I've dealt with ones I thought were great and others that weren't so great. The salary disparity certainly affects other professions as well.
There's seems to be an idea amongst the medical profession (and others), however, that they're somehow worth more in salary by some default mechanism. I'm trying to determine why that is. You made the point about education and training. I countered with another profession that requires just as much.
I'd add fire personnel and EMTs to the "life and death" discussion, who sometimes risk their own lives in the process. Should we pay them at the same rate as physicians? If not, why not?
Another question pertains to the value we put on living as opposed to just dying. There are college professors/teachers/writers/artists/musicians, etc, who've had a strong influence on me that, if I do live long enough, will last for 50 or 60 years or more, creating opportunities not just for me but for my family and others I may come into contact with. Is that worth more or less than a person extending my life by a couple of years when I'm already at my weakest? It's no doubt a difficult question. Some of your answers, though, seem unconcerned with it.
As the anonymous comment alluded to, I don't have a problem with doctors or anyone else making a nice living for themselves. What I do have a problem with is the sense of entitlement that seems to be attached to certain professions that may or may not actually be more valuable on the whole. To suggest that our medical establishment needs work is perfectly acceptable to me. Saying that doctors must make six figures for that work to occur isn't.
make that not dying.
I have to agree pretty much with Anon 5:10. I don't know what a doctor ought to make. or an engineer. or a septic sucker.
I believe you do need to think just a bit more about this. Perhaps the "market" is correcting itself. Maybe it is your professions turn in the barrel.
I doubt if you want to admit it but you coming real close to the "god" complex that people like to stereotype doctors with. I mean that in a friendly way.
"Neither College professors nor any other job deal with life and death decisions every day."
You surely don't believe that do you? Nor any other job? Who do you think deals with the pain of the "horrible news" after you have left the room? My wife and others like her. How much is that worth?
Kudos to your wife, Iamhoosier. I have a friend who's a social worker at a hospital in Chicago. Not a job I think I could do, nor could many people, including doctors.
Thanks Bluegill. She is my wife and therefore I am biased. She has to be the most competent person I have ever known. I should not have brought her into this. It is the main reason that I use a screen name. If people don't like what I say, some may not be able to seperate that. She deals with people at a most critical time in their lives and distractions are not needed.
In case anyone does "know" her, I speak only for myself, don't blame her. She is so much better a person than I am. Still can't believe how lucky I am.
I absolutely believe that police officers are the most underpaid of professions. With a sister in the Tampa florida police department I believe they should make $100,000 a year. I'd be willing to pay more taxes if I believed the money was going for that purpose.
I really don't see Americans settling for the healthcare that is seen in both Canada and Europe. This is always the comparison brought up, but there is a tremendous difference in what is available and to whom. Americans would never accept that.
There are problems with access, equipment, diagnostics, speed of getting care etc. That is why so many Canadians cross the border to get their care.
Americans have to decide on what value they place on healthcare and be willing to accept the consequences of those decisions.
I believe that access problems, preventative care, state of the art medicine and a host of other issues all will worsen if the current trend is not remedied.
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