More turmoil, more bad news. I heard from an elderly patient --who had stage IV bladder cancer and seemingly has a permanent foley catheter--that his urologists were all "leaving town". He told me there was an article in the local newspaper last week stating that that Specialists in Urology --a big beautiful practice with a big, beautiful, glossy-white art-deco building, and 7 urologists--is scheduled to close in March 2017. I was alarmed and spurred to do some quick online searches about this.
Here is the local article--
http://www.news-press.com/story/news/local/2016/12/16/specialists-in-urology-practice-closing-southwest-florida/95536280/
Apparently, the Specialists in Urology group was bought by 21st Century Oncology, and this company was over extended debt-wise and rapidly going broke, failing to make a scheduled loan payment last month. The electronic health records were hacked, and there was a whistleblower act that resulted in heavy fines to Medicare. Bottom line, I smell bad management and bad planning resulting from greed. I think perhaps they were all too quick to jump into things they didn't fully understand, nor fully implement. I'm shocked and saddened to see so much effort and investment go to waste, but most importantly these abandoned patients are left without continuing urologic care. These are mostly prostate cancer and bladder cancer patients, not easy for another doctor to enter the picture without serious hiccups. I'm very disappointed in the government push for EHR and consolidation to help populations and make disease management more efficient--blah blah blah. The reality is that these government led mandates don't thrive well in the deep trench of medicine, much less in a subspecialty like urologic cancers. When the infrastructure and government mandates strangulate innovation and growth and encourage willy-nilly consolidation, it will inevitably end in divorces and unhappy doctors and patients. I don't know what will become of either but I hope they all find a way out of the mess. Like my patient said, "all my doctors left town". He has found a urologist in a town 50 miles with whom he will continue his care.
Upon leaving, he told me he was grateful that after 15 years of being his dermatologist, I'm still here. I told him, so am I.
