We need to stop looking to politicians

Richard Armstrong, MD shares his thoughts on what physicians must do following the King vs. Burwell ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States:

The government is on a fantasy fiscal trajectory and they have been for 5 decades. MACRA accelerated it, but it allowed Congress to wash their hands of the issues for about another decade. This SCOTUS decision simply says that the government can “allocate” about another $700 billion to subsidize health care spending over the next decade…roughly.

Since 1990 the percentage of GDP allocated to all federal spending has remained relatively constant. However, in 1990 1/3 of that spending was on “entitlement” programs. By 2015 the percentage has increased to ½. The projection is that by 2030 the percentage will be 2/3. Spending on entitlements will crowd out everything else.

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As the federal central planning unravels, we need to be there

Guest blog from Dr. Richard Armstrong:

Steve,

Excellent, and a powerful story which resonates with everyone who sees clearly where this has been heading for years.  Those who haven’t had the courage or resources to do what you have done successfully need to hear this and I would appreciate it very much if you would be willing to post your story to Sermo.  Josh, Doug and Lee Gross as well as others have been doing an excellent job nationwide teaching our colleagues how to approach these tough decisions and navigate them successfully.

A Physician Overcomes His Addiction to Third-Party Money

Guest post from Steven Horvitz, DO

I am solo Family practice in southern New Jersey.

Back in 2006 I saw the writing on the wall that solo docs were in trouble. Revenues were stagnant due to insurer fee schedule reduction, yet expenses kept rising. My practice style does not fare well with quick visits so adjusting my practice to a treat-em and street-em quickly was not in my plans.

In 2005 United Healthcare and First Health insurers were creating issues with referrals and formularies and since I did not have a large percentage of those patients I dropped those plans. Most of those patients either switched insurance to remain with me or paid me my cash fee.

I’m a DO, and it is a beautiful thing. We must keep our identity.

Dr. Gina Reghetti shares her thoughts on preserving the practice of osteopathic medicine and formation of an alternative D.O. board:

We must fight the system that wants to change a good thing. Osteopathy needs to stay unchanged, and it needs to be practiced as it was practiced in the past, without insurance involvement because it is the big corporate insurance companies that just couldn’t understand our language so they have attempted to destroy it. Harvard has dealt us serious blows because it’s the allopathic profession that is clueless to the medical practice of Osteopathy, yet they are the ones in positions to judge, and define reimbursement for an area of medicine that they just don’t know. We are not allopathic physicians, and we never will be, and never care to be so we need to stop holding DOs to the same standards as the MDs were trained. We are not trained the same that is why we don’t take the same boards; we are very different!

We must keep our identity especially when big government and national medical organizations are forcing us down one pathway.

@LetMyDrPractice – SummitAtTheSummit.com, July 20-26, 2015

A special message from Daniel Craviotto, MD:

Dear Physician Colleague,

We want to thank you for your support of Let My Doctor Practice and the Summit at the Summit Conference! We have some exciting news to share about the event.

We’ve reached 20% of our funding goal! The movement to Let My Doctor Practice is gaining momentum, and organizations and individuals are signing on to help restore doctors’ autonomy. If you haven’t signed up for the webcast or in-person event, click here.