Reply #17: What a wonderful name! [View All]

[Aragorn]

Not on subject, but let me say - I often thought about a personalized license plate with my name (in 6 ascii places per Tx law) but when I heard 2 nurses discuss a similar plate for a local doctor, in a bad-mouth kinda way, I decided to use J R R Tolkien instead - so my old but personally restored 1966 Mustang is "Narsil" - the Ford that was broken and forged again.

So, you agree that doctors can make a difference! I am happy to report that many physicians do business the way yours does, and the way I do. We can't afford to advertise it much or we would all be swamped. People need to demand more and talk it up. However, it should be obvious that many doctors are into maximum profit. Somehow the TX Medical Board ignores the prohibition on corporate medicine and allows hospitals to hire/employ physicians - which makes for maximal profit.

I actually faced (and won) a case from a private for-profit hospital where my care was claimed to be "against the financial interests" of said hospital. That is, my quick but effective discharges of improved patients hurt their profit. I won mostly (IMHO) because their own records showed that they sent Medicaid patients to me preferentially, but sent privately insured patients to doctors who would keep them in hospital longer. Medicaid had a cap on total charges, while for-profits had a per-diem.

Think about it.

DUers, never overlook the profit motive for doctors and hospitals!

p.s. I presume a reply from "Lorien" to Aragorn"'s post means that many many readers see DU even when they don't reply. If so DU reaches a heck of a lot of people.