Here's an eye opener for you . . . surprised or not?

not surprised......................................raven

In general none of the info in the article surprises me - and I do think it is getting more and more prominent. For the most part doctors no longer work for themselves as in the past. They are merely employees who work for large health care corporations and , like all employees, they have to tow the company line - what ever that may be. I doubt it puts the interest of the patient first.

Our doctor recently left his private practice to work for one of these groups and now he has to order that we have all tests done at their labs and their imaging centers etc etc. So now instead of having my mammogram 1/2 mile from my house where I have been going for 3 years I will have to go 20 miles to another town where this corporation has a "women's center" to have it done. I had no say in it because they require him to send the order to them electronically, so i don't have a Rx to go to the old place. He tried to also make us use their pharmacy but we had to recline to do that because when we go north in the summer that pharmacy would not be available to us. We NEED to use a national chain like CVS or Walgreens.

It's not surprising to me.

Insurance companies work off of stats and numbers. Profit is the bottom line.

No, I am not surprised. Our hospital billing is done out of NC, we are in MO. The doctors in the area are all billed through a Physician's Billing Service, an entirely separate medial building.

I told my doc I took myself off Lipitor due to side effects. She called me and practically begged me to try another brand. I told her I would confer with my family first. She had her assistant call me yesterday to ask if I had made a decision. I told her no, I haven't. I have no intention of trying another one, but I think she'll have a nervous breakdown if I don't. I feel sorry for her, she must be low on "points."

For those on regular Medicare, I don't think this would be a problem like it is for people insured by private companies who have provider networks, etc., or for the private insurers offering Medicare Advantage who also have limited provider networks.

All the more reason for regular Medicare type of coverage for everyone, or single payer system. If we had Medicare for everyone, more doctors would accept that coverage because they would have to. As it is now, they can opt out of accepting patients with Medicare as their primary.

Not surprised at all. And if you don't like the influence of insurance company payors on the decisions of physicians seeing patients, consider how many patients the government pays for and/or regulates -- through Medicare, Medicaid, and now the ACA. The only way you can get a doctor who is really a "free moral agent" is by contracting on a self-pay basis as in "concierge medicine".

On 11/22/2014 kittymomNC said:

For those on regular Medicare, I don't think this would be a problem like it is for people insured by private companies who have provider networks, etc., or for the private insurers offering Medicare Advantage who also have limited provider networks.

All the more reason for regular Medicare type of coverage for everyone, or single payer system. If we had Medicare for everyone, more doctors would accept that coverage because they would have to. As it is now, they can opt out of accepting patients with Medicare as their primary.

And you think the government "single payor" doesn't exert influence or impose intrustive regulations? You're kidding, right? (That's providing you can find a decent physician who still accepts one of these government programs. The ranks are diminishing, you know.)

On 11/22/2014 GoodStuff said:

On 11/22/2014 kittymomNC said:

For those on regular Medicare, I don't think this would be a problem like it is for people insured by private companies who have provider networks, etc., or for the private insurers offering Medicare Advantage who also have limited provider networks.

All the more reason for regular Medicare type of coverage for everyone, or single payer system. If we had Medicare for everyone, more doctors would accept that coverage because they would have to. As it is now, they can opt out of accepting patients with Medicare as their primary.

And you think the government "single payor" doesn't exert influence or impose intrustive regulations? You're kidding, right? (That's providing you can find a decent physician who still accepts one of these government programs. The ranks are diminishing, you know.)

No, I'm definitely not kidding -- when it comes to my health and the doctors who take care of me, I don't kid around!

I'm a living example of a person who's been on regular Medicare and a supplement for several years, have had all the treatment I need, from the doctors I want, overnight emergency stay in the hospital, cardiac catheterization, blood tests, routine physicals, urgent care visits, etc. etc. etc. And my doctors are some of the best in an area with large medical centers and more doctors than in most sections of the country.

If a lot of people had this kind of care and paid NO MONEY out of pocket for anything other than the premiums (which are reasonable in my opinion in the whole context), they would be jumping for joy. If you want to talk about intrusive regulations, tell me what they are and how they have affected me. I haven't seen it.

I paid through the teeth for the last 20 years of my working life for medical coverage, and the insurance company put out a very small percentage of my premiums for my actual medical care (but they could spend hundreds of thousands taking executives to golf tournaments!) I was elated when I got Medicare!

My point is, that if the only kind of coverage available was Medicare or a single payer system, the ranks of doctors taking it wouldn't be shrinking, they would have no choice but to take it.

And how many times do you hear people complaining about "government getting in their business and wanting smaller government, etc.", but then yelling at the top of their lungs, "but don't mess with my Medicare"! What a conundrum!