{"id":774,"date":"2008-06-17T11:51:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-17T15:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=774"},"modified":"2008-06-17T11:51:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-17T15:51:00","slug":"essay-fed-up-with-the-frustrations-more-doctors-change-course-nytimes-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=774","title":{"rendered":"Essay &#8211; Fed Up With the Frustrations, More Doctors Change Course &#8211; NYTimes.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/06\/17\/health\/views\/17essa.html?_r=1&amp;oref=slogin&amp;ref=science&amp;pagewanted=print\">Essay &#8211; Fed Up With the Frustrations, More Doctors Change Course &#8211; NYTimes.com<\/a>:<br \/>&#8220;Not long ago, fed up with what he perceived as a loss of professional autonomy, Dr. Bhupinder Singh, 42, a general internist in New York, sold his practice and went to work part time at a hospital in Queens.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d write a prescription,\u201d he told me, \u201cand then insurance companies would put restrictions on almost every medication. I\u2019d get a call: \u2018Drug not covered. Write a different prescription or get preauthorization.\u2019 If I ordered an M.R.I., I\u2019d have to explain to a clerk why I wanted to do the test. I felt handcuffed. It was a big, big headache.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When he decided to work in a hospital, he figured that there would be more freedom to practice his specialty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut managed care is like a magnet attached to you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He continues to be frustrated by payment denials. \u201cThirty percent of my hospital admissions are being denied. There\u2019s a 45-day limit on the appeal. You don\u2019t bill in time, you lose everything. You\u2019re discussing this with a managed-care rep on the phone and you think: \u2018You\u2019re sitting there, I\u2019m sitting here. How do you know anything about this patient?\u2019 \u201d&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>But if they were Government Bureaucrats, now that would be intolerable&#8230;<\/em><br \/><em><\/em><br \/><em>BTW, I included this post with the category of Rationing Healthcare because it does become rationing by attrition. Physicians often are so frustrated by the battles they fight hourly with Private Insurers, they cave in and provide less than optimal care.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Essay &#8211; Fed Up With the Frustrations, More Doctors Change Course &#8211; NYTimes.com:&#8220;Not long ago, fed up with what he perceived as a loss of professional autonomy, Dr. Bhupinder Singh, &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/?p=774\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Essay &#8211; Fed Up With the Frustrations, More Doctors Change Course &#8211; NYTimes.com&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[97,47,26,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-physician-autonomy","category-physician-income","category-private-health-insurance","category-rationing-health-care"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.cmhughesmd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}