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WARNING: Managed Care May Be Dangerous to Your Health |
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Professional Practice |
Dr. Sandra Levy Ceren |
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Several years ago, the filing of bankruptcy by FPA in San Diego should have alerted the public to the true purpose of managed care. FPA, and other similar commercial enterprises termed managed care cannot deliver adequate service to patients and payment to doctors when proceeds are spent on an outrageous severance package of over four million dollars to the CEO, and salaries over one million dollars a year to each executive. FPA is not unique in their industry. These schemers represent the lowest rung on the food chain! Armed with a good financial backing, a slick team of attorneys, a creative advertising firm, and a sales force well versed in launching a clever, seductive campaign, managed health care companies make promises they have no intention of keeping. If those who buy into this scheme used common sense and simple arithmetic they would see that administrative costs and payments to executives would eat up the corporations ability to provide good care. Before doctors joined these plans they had spent most of their time practicing their craft and keeping abreast of the latest developments in their fields. They had little time or interest to learn about business, and they too, have been suckered. San Diego has the largest population of patients per capita on managed care in the country. To maintain a practice, health care professionals have felt the need to join preferred provider groups. Experience has shown that they have sold their professions to the devil. Instead of spending quality time helping people, doctors face mounds of paper work and waste time on the phone coping with demands from managed care quarters. Decisions affecting patient’s health cannot be made without the approval, in many cases, of someone whose credentials are questionable and whose role is to cut costs. Is this the quality of care we deserve? Adequate health care should be the right of every human being. The United States and South Africa are the only industrialized countries that do not provide universal health care to its people. We must prevail upon our legislators to right this wrong. |
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