Physicians Practice - January 2008 - (Page 12)

LETTERS “If you want to fix the healthcare system, the first thing needed is to actually have a system, instead of our vast, expensive, competitive non-system that puts profits before patients.” FIRST THINGS FIRST HEALTH FOR ALL? I have to admit that I haven’t yet seen Michael Moore’s latest creation, “Sicko” (Politics and Your Practice, September 2007), but I wonder what you believe to be the problem with the U.S. Postal Service and public education? I regularly use the Postal Service to send packages to my public school-educated son, who is a pre-med student at a top-tier college. His public high school education was wonderful and the mail reliably and affordably keeps us in communication. Are they perfect? No, but elitist privatized education and package delivery don’t automatically provide better service, nor reduce costs, and certainly don’t expand access. The Postal Service and public education were among the ﬁrst and most important institutions developed in the U.S. during its infancy because together they form one of the major foundations of a democratic society: an educated populace with the ability to communicate freely. I see no reason why the health of the public is not equally important, and could not be handled better by some kind of nationalized system than the mess created by the forproﬁt and privatized healthcare “system” we are currently afﬂicted with. At the very least the public systems are available to all. If you want to ﬁx the healthcare system, the ﬁrst thing needed is to actually have a system, instead of our vast, expensive, competitive non-system that puts proﬁts before patients. Six- and seven-ﬁgure “bonuses” to the CEOs of major healthcare corporations, insurance companies with record proﬁts while denying coverage to patients, and pharmaceutical companies with advertising budgets the size of Third World countries’ GDPs point to the lack of restraint and control that the free market is able to exert. I also would like to know why you feel that “similar schemes (for providing universal healthcare) have failed in country after country around the globe.” What has failed? Their ability to provide basic and preventive healthcare for all of their citizens? No, they all do that; we don’t. Americans have to decide if we are willing to keep selling our children’s health and future to keep propping up an unjust, costly, and unsafe healthcare system that produces inferior health status and marginalizes more people every year. Or do we want to develop a healthcare system that provides beneﬁts to all and improves health status at lower cost? That is what other countries with “failed systems” have done. In the absence of something approximating a coherent national plan, we are getting exactly what we have asked for, and probably deserve. —Lisa Grill Dodson, MD Portland, Ore. OUR MISSION Helping physicians manage their practices more efﬁciently, leading to improved patient care. P U B L I S H I N G S TA F F VICE PRESIDENT & GROUP PUBLISHER Ken Karpay kkarpay@physicianspractice.com GENERAL MANAGER Katherine Hermann khermann@physicianspractice.com EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE EDITOR Bob Keaveney bkeaveney@physicianspractice.com SENIOR EDITOR, PRACTICE MANAGEMENT Pamela L. Moore, PhD pmoore@physicianspractice.com MANAGING EDITOR Abigail Beckel abeckel@physicianspractice.com SENIOR EDITOR, PROJECTS Laurie Hyland Robertson lchrobertson@physicianspractice.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR Barbara A. Gabriel, MA bgabriel@physicianspractice.com MANAGING EDITOR, PROJECTS Alyson Siclare asiclare@physicianspractice.com SENIOR WRITER Shirley Grace, MA sgrace@physicianspractice.com EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Erica Lukenich elukenich@physicianspractice.com CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Robert Anthony, Bill Dacey, Jacqueline M. Duda, Nick Fabrizio, Jonathan McCallister, Bob Redling, Steve Ryan, MD, Shelly K. 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Copyright © 2007 by CMP Healthcare Media LLC. Single copies $10; annual subscription $56. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Send address changes to: Physicians Practice, c/o CMPMedica, 330 Boston Post Road, Darien, CT 06820; or send by email to wdingle@cmp.com. PRAISING PROFESSIONALISM My physician wife Evi and I read your article (“Paging Dr. Hippocrates,” October 2007) with great enthusiasm. It is an outstanding article that should be read by medical students, physicians-in-training, physicians-inpractice, and all those who wish to 12 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | JANUARY 2008 WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://www.PhysiciansPractice.com http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - January 2008

Physicians Practice - January 2008 Contents The Bigger Picture: Fixing Medicaid Letters Physicians Practice Pearls: You Can Teach an Old Dog New Tricks Noteworthy Cover Story: Fee Schedule Survey: 2007 Results Adding Ancillaries: Bucking the Practice Ask the Experts Idealab: 'How I Got Over My EMR Excuses' Technology: Don't Be Denied The Tech Doctor: Blessing or Curse? The Administrator's Desk: Learning From the Best Coding Career: To Partner, or Not? Management: Controlling Your Inventory Human Resources: How to Fire an Enployee Finance: Beyond Reimbursment - How to Fix Your Mix Classifieds Advertiser Index

Physicians Practice - January 2008

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