the glory and the horror

John Eliot and his sheep

There are a few more videos up so far, and more will be coming. Pictures will be making their way up as well once I get a chance to go through some, pick out some good ones and edit them.

Commentary: Why primary care doctors are fed up – CNN.com

A well-written piece. No matter how you cut it, people will follow the money and lifestyle. Until primary care is reimbursed at a reasonable amount compared to your gastroenterologist or anesthesiologist or otolaryngologist, people aren’t going to do it in the numbers truly needed for a good primary care foundation.

That means revamping the reimbursement scheme – don’t pay so much for procedures, and so little for counseling. Limit PCP legal liability. Even procedure-based subspecialists would like to do fewer procedures at times (heard the words straight out of their mouths just last month), since procedures still have risks. They tell the patient they don’t need the procedure, and the patient gets upset, and finds somebody out there who will indulge the patient and do an invasive procedure, driving up costs to the system. At the same time, doing the procedure is “safer” in terms of covering the MD legally, since they can at least say, “Look, here’s the cath/path/pictures to prove there was nothing wrong” when there was no medical indication to do the procedure/imaging in the first place (again, see the above article).

Those 2 simple, yet difficult, changes would make a world of difference.

John Eliot (Chinese middle name) Fung
Born 5 August 2009 at 1106, 8 lbs 5 oz, 21 inches.
Pictures to come.
See Facebook.

Yes, this room is chilly. Over-air-conditioned, for sure.

So we’re all just hanging out, waiting for the pitocin to kick in a little stronger. They’ve titrated it up a couple of times, and now Kathleen is starting to feel it a bit more. Thankfully, we have all sorts of fun people around right now to keep us all talking, laughing and having a good time. This is easy (so far).