Damaged Care, Damaged Caregiver
From: Helen Dynda (olddad66@runestone.net)
Tue May 29 20:11:08 2001
[]> Damaged Care, Damaged Caregiver describes a family physician's experiences with managed care. The earlier chapters focus on problems encountered by health care consummers and providers. The latter chapters explore the effects HMOs have had on the practice of medicine.
I am a family practitioner. On June 1, 1998, after 10 years in private practice, I closed my office. This was not a financial decision. Nor was it something I had been planning. In the months before June, I had found myself becoming increasingly anxious. My work--the work I had been doing for a decade--became so stressful that I could not eat, sleep or relax, even on weekends when I was not working.
What had changed? Very little on the surface. For seven years, I had worked with the same partners. I occupied the same office and had many of the same employees. My family life was stable. Yet, something was not right. My profession, in which I had been happy and successful, had turned sour.
In an attempt to figure out what had gone wrong, I reviewed my journal. I was shocked at what I read. During the time it was happening, I thought that I was merely experiencing the inevitable hassles of trying to practice medicine under managed care. Looking back, I realized that the "hassles" were much more than that. They were part of an effort by the HMOs to put their own financial interests above the well being of their patients. Managed care was trying to replace medical ethics with medical economics.
THESE ARE ONLY THE FIRST 3 PARAGRAPHS OF THE INTRODUCTION!! THERE ARE 16 CHAPTERS!!
DO I HAVE YOUR INTEREST? DO YOU WANT TO READ MORE? GO TO THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE:
http://www.swbt.com/~taylorjh/damaged/index.html