https://www.healthcare-now.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/2013CEOPayChart1.jpg
http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/Investors/~/media/2B5EEC6F00F446AC9051674E259BA80B.ashx
Here's some acid producing stuff for 2014--
CEO of ExxonMobil: $40 million
CEO of United Health Care: $12million
CEO of Aetna: $8.2 million
The CEO of Apple: $9.2million
Clear Stream
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
UHC, take this job and shove it
I have tendered my resignation from United Health Care networks. Too much bureaucratic BS. It's all in my letter.
Just take note of the most recent news release on their 4th quarter profit.
http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/Investors/~/media/2B5EEC6F00F446AC9051674E259BA80B.ashx
Just take note of the most recent news release on their 4th quarter profit.
http://www.unitedhealthgroup.com/Investors/~/media/2B5EEC6F00F446AC9051674E259BA80B.ashx
To: United HealthCare, Corporate National and Local offices
Friday, February 20, 2015
To Whom It May Concern,
After years of providing dermatological care for patients who possess health insurance from United Healthcare, this letter serves as your notification that I am resigning from your “provider panel” for all the networks and products you offer. I will no longer serve as a physician providing care to patients under United Healthcare. As of today, I am severing our relationship without cause, with three months’ notice per customary protocol.
I will communicate this to my patients currently enrolled with United Health Care. However, 90 days from today, beginning on May 20, 2015 I must not be listed on your online provider search engine, website, nor portals; nor listed as a provider in any print or electronic communication with patients nor the public at large after that date.
My experience as a physician with you has been extremely frustrating in the past 18 months. As long as you collude with the federal government, you have no risk and considerable profit, and billions of dollars are being siphoned that should have gone directly to patient care. Your medical care ratio ending in 2014 is 79.8%, meaning that 79.8% of the income from premiums is devoted to payment for medical claims. Where does the other 21% go? Perhaps in efforts such as expanding Optum; paying dividends to your shareholders and bonuses to your CEO; lobbying the government for more bailouts; or hosting coffee talks and sending glossy brochures to enroll more Americans, ignorant of your mercenary and crony capitalism ways.
I have witnessed the decline of the public perception and personal experience with the United Health Care company as a whole, where patients had reasonable cost coverages and the website was easy to navigate. The trend for the past several years has been of skyrocketing deductibles, copayments and prescription costs, a cumbersome website that doesn’t verify coverage in a reliable real time fashion-- then we’re left with unanswered questions in the medical office because a person cannot be reached on your byzantine phone system. Shame on you for denigrating physicians, dismissing us summarily, without an explanation from your Medicare Advantage networks, leaving thousands of patients in the lurch and without alternatives, more confused than ever about their insurance status. Your reasons were couched publicly and online as promoting quality initiatives, but they were clearly cost control measures where patients were sacrificed and they did not obtain medical care, thus saving you money and promoting profits. Not one person from your company explained or ensured a transition would happen. Patients still are confused about this, 18 months after my letter was received and 1 year after it took effect, and they have been lied to and manipulated as a statistic point in your pursuit of federal dollars. I see what you are, and I want no part of it.
Costs have escalated while benefits, and reimbursement, have plummeted. In light of onerous deductibles, complicated online password-requiring preauthorizations and online/paperwork deluge for pathology or lab testing, I find I can no longer practice medicine while under your provider list. Instead I am a navigator of insurance/medical/pharmacy bureaucracies.This is not coherent with my professional mission nor values. Thus, I am tendering my resignation from all of your networks.
Sincerely,
Dr. G
Monday, February 16, 2015
Close the gap and some navel-gazing
There is a huge push for payment for quality, payment for outcomes. Neither of these are defined in any sort of consistent, concise fashion. Not for one single diagnosis across the board in medicine.
It fails to take into account that the patient is the one and only arbiter of what goes into the mouth, what smokes go into the lungs, etc. Physicians are no more responsible for the behavior of patients than the plumber is responsible for the behavior of your toilet or the auto mechanic for your car. Nobody is addressing the fact that we don't have cures or favorable outcomes for everything. People all will eventually die. Mortality is a metric that dares not be breathed into any discussion.
Health care in this country isn't really about prevention, we can try to prevent every bad thing but people will, and can get, randomly--or genetically determined--illnesses such as lupus or leukemia. We need to differentiate between sick care and health care. Doctors promote health by treating and sometimes even conquering illnesses. But we generally don't go out there and lay waste to every cigarette counter at a local supermarket or set fires to Dunkin Donuts. Do these items promote health? No. But it's a free country and I will not agree with your cigarette and donut, but I will defend your right to get it. I will not participate in any insurance plan that requires my clicking of a box on smoking cessation counseling or trans fat free dietary management.
It fails to take into account that the patient is the one and only arbiter of what goes into the mouth, what smokes go into the lungs, etc. Physicians are no more responsible for the behavior of patients than the plumber is responsible for the behavior of your toilet or the auto mechanic for your car. Nobody is addressing the fact that we don't have cures or favorable outcomes for everything. People all will eventually die. Mortality is a metric that dares not be breathed into any discussion.
Health care in this country isn't really about prevention, we can try to prevent every bad thing but people will, and can get, randomly--or genetically determined--illnesses such as lupus or leukemia. We need to differentiate between sick care and health care. Doctors promote health by treating and sometimes even conquering illnesses. But we generally don't go out there and lay waste to every cigarette counter at a local supermarket or set fires to Dunkin Donuts. Do these items promote health? No. But it's a free country and I will not agree with your cigarette and donut, but I will defend your right to get it. I will not participate in any insurance plan that requires my clicking of a box on smoking cessation counseling or trans fat free dietary management.
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Grow up People!!!!
Yesterday I lost my patience with patients.
On the whole, I see and deal with people of all walks of life, all ages, all ethnicities. They may be ill with infections or cancer, or they may be the worried well. It's all the same for doctors everywhere in clinical practice.
I have a snowbird patient I saw once 4 months ago. She was given a prescription for imiquimod by her dermatologist in a another state prior to my seeing her, and not to my knowledge. She's 89 years old, she proceeded to use this with wild abandon on her face last month. She got very irritated and rashy, bleeding and crusting, and so she called me for help. Fine, she's here temporarily and I can manage the necrosis caused by a drug I didn't prescribe, nor am I in agreement on its being used by a geriatric patient with a history of traumatic falls and who doesn't have a permanent address. But I digress. A patient is in distress, I know I can help. ****Polyanna music to cue here*****
I see the patient, examine the horrible facial crusts, take a culture, prescribe an oral antibiotic, a topical steroid for the itching, and lots of rest and gentle cold compresses with topical OTC antibiotic ointment. I advised her that the local pharmacy in my area would certainly have the prescriptions available. She told me she lived in the next town over and would use a national store's pharmacy, it shall remain nameless except it's a big box that offers $4 prescriptions for CERTAIN drugs.
She calls my office 4 hours later to chew me out that "the oral antibiotic costs $4 and is a reasonable price, but the cream is $90 and I won't get it". This is the 756th patient to do so this month.
This is where the doctor sees red.
I was on the phone, listening to her rail, and her complaining ad nauseam about the costs of drugs---then I lost it. I told her I had no more patience to deal with her complaints and that she had to figure it out herself.
PHEW.
I am pissed that I have to be the arbiter of sick care costs, prescriptions costs, and all the while be cheerful and compassionate and sympathetic. No more. I am done and I will not respond to queries about drug costs or preauthorizations. Go complain to the govt and see if they'll treat your cancer while you're at it, your infections, your neoplastic processes.....I'm DONE DONE DONE. I'm a doctor, not a financial analyst, data acquisition specialist nor pharmacy advocate. I'm sick of the lies, you were promised free or cheap drugs, you could keep your doctor, you could keep your plan, all LIES. I hate this!!!!
On the whole, I see and deal with people of all walks of life, all ages, all ethnicities. They may be ill with infections or cancer, or they may be the worried well. It's all the same for doctors everywhere in clinical practice.
I have a snowbird patient I saw once 4 months ago. She was given a prescription for imiquimod by her dermatologist in a another state prior to my seeing her, and not to my knowledge. She's 89 years old, she proceeded to use this with wild abandon on her face last month. She got very irritated and rashy, bleeding and crusting, and so she called me for help. Fine, she's here temporarily and I can manage the necrosis caused by a drug I didn't prescribe, nor am I in agreement on its being used by a geriatric patient with a history of traumatic falls and who doesn't have a permanent address. But I digress. A patient is in distress, I know I can help. ****Polyanna music to cue here*****
I see the patient, examine the horrible facial crusts, take a culture, prescribe an oral antibiotic, a topical steroid for the itching, and lots of rest and gentle cold compresses with topical OTC antibiotic ointment. I advised her that the local pharmacy in my area would certainly have the prescriptions available. She told me she lived in the next town over and would use a national store's pharmacy, it shall remain nameless except it's a big box that offers $4 prescriptions for CERTAIN drugs.
She calls my office 4 hours later to chew me out that "the oral antibiotic costs $4 and is a reasonable price, but the cream is $90 and I won't get it". This is the 756th patient to do so this month.
This is where the doctor sees red.
I was on the phone, listening to her rail, and her complaining ad nauseam about the costs of drugs---then I lost it. I told her I had no more patience to deal with her complaints and that she had to figure it out herself.
PHEW.
I am pissed that I have to be the arbiter of sick care costs, prescriptions costs, and all the while be cheerful and compassionate and sympathetic. No more. I am done and I will not respond to queries about drug costs or preauthorizations. Go complain to the govt and see if they'll treat your cancer while you're at it, your infections, your neoplastic processes.....I'm DONE DONE DONE. I'm a doctor, not a financial analyst, data acquisition specialist nor pharmacy advocate. I'm sick of the lies, you were promised free or cheap drugs, you could keep your doctor, you could keep your plan, all LIES. I hate this!!!!
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