It is, and always has been illegal for physicians to be employed. Obamacare allowed huge corporations (like Walgreens) and massive hospital systems to employ doctors by establishing a “non-prosecution agreement”/ “safe harbor” exception by the OIG in 2011 as long as they were part of an “obamacare model.”
Since then, independent physicians were gobbled up by massive healthcare monopolies which were allowed to explode in size and scope. Healthcare costs exploded, while simultaneously destroying the quality of care here in the USA.
Repeal the safe harbor, demand that doctors are independent again, and watch prices tumble.
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Stavros,
Please see my post from yesterday. I have laid out a plan how to accomplish some of your proposals. I agree with your post completely. We need to increase private practice physicians in America.
My post is labeled " Assisting and Sustaining the Ability for Private Practice Physicians to Thrive, Restore Provider Autonomy, and Decrease Government Regulations". I even have an executive order posted. I look forward to you r comments.
Scott Tzorfas, MD
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How do we get this more circulation? This is EXTREMELY important and needs to be addressed. I live in a suburb of Cleveland, OH and there are literally NO independent physicians near me. My PCP was independent when I started seeing him and was swallowed up by Cleveland Clinic Foundation due to insurance and other practice costs being unmanageable. He is no longer permitted to think critically, is tied to proscribed protocols, and is forced to meet productivity standards, including for referrals, prescriptions, and prophylactic measures. I am absolutely TERRIFIED of ever needing to be hospitalized where I live. These people are automatons not physicians.
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If only patients knew how much of a disaster it has been to allow physicians to become yoked by these greedy monstrosities!!!
I am looking at this as we speak.
It is a nightmare! I worked in a small suburban hospital and watched the transformation over a period of 14 years from a caregiver-oriented institution to a financial-oriented institution. Our doctors were all independent. We had a choice who to see, and they had an incentive to be good at what they did because if they weren’t, they had no patients. Now all the doctors are on a payroll, none of them are required to think critically. They mindlessly follow the protocols set for them, and each has a limited focus/specialty. How can you possibly treat a human body correctly if you only understand one part of it? The COVID healthcare debacle would NEVER have happened if healthcare workers had been permitted to think critically. Instead, we had automatons mindlessly following orders, and cowards afraid to buck the system.
Well, we are the news now, so I guess that means it’s our responsibility to educate people. Unfortunately for me I seem to put people on the defensive when I try to reason with them. I have little patience for molly-coddling and apparently that is what is required in order to break through the hypnosis of decades of lies and propaganda.