At 10:44 AM Wednesday 10/29/2008, Bruce Bostwick wrote: >On Oct 29, 2008, at 10:23 AM, John Williams wrote: > > > Bruce Bostwick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> At the very least, put actual practicing MD's in charge of the > >> medical > >> decisions to cover or not cover treatment, and hold them accountable > >> for permanent health consequences if they dodge covering a treatment > >> that turns out to have been medically necessary? > > > > And watch in horror as they order every expensive diagnostic procedure > > and treatment in the book for a simple cold, in order to cover their > > asses. > >Over the heads of your primary care provider, in other words? > >It's one thing to say no to a treatment or diagnostic procedure the >doctor actually in front of you has ordered. It's another thing >entirely to order tests or treatments the doctor *didn't* order him/ >herself. And it would be a vast improvement over anonymous bean >counters arbitrarily denying care because it might actually cost money. > >It might even make it worth working as a doctor in this country >again. (An MD friend and former teacher of mine recently told me she >wouldn't recommend anyone she knows go into medicine these days, >because it's almost not worth seeing patients between the legal >pitfalls, malpractice insurance, and patients' HMO's saying no to just >about everything she orders or prescribes.)
"In one respect at least the Martians are a happy people; they have no lawyers." Edgar Rice Burroughs, "A Princess of Mars" _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
