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Kim Lucas's avatar

Dear Bryan,

Thank you for this post and for staying with this topic. I agree with you 100%. I see very little enthusiasm among those I work with daily. In fact, Enthusiasm is on my to-do list for 2024. Both personal and professional. I have no idea what that will look like yet, but it’s a place to start.

I have managed to stay in the game by reducing work hours to 28 hours a week.

I can’t tell you how many physicians in and around my generation (50-60 yo) have left or seriously cut back on their work hours. Unbelievable amounts of experience and knowledge are now permanently lost to the system.

Even with that, I struggle to keep up with my non-face-to-face work. So do ALL of my colleagues. Leadership signals we are the “problem,” and the proposed solution is “Just Do It.” It’s not working. It’s a slow, passive-aggressive stalemate for everyone.

I feel hesitant about unions, but those seem to be taking hold, and I do see that as a positive sign that there is energy and appetite for change.

One fundamental problem is that payments are unfairly low and unequal.

It drives a bunch of what providers and patients suffer from. The answer has been volume, but that has long maxed out. Quality has been the new buzzword, but that’s not easy to measure or control, and providers are ultimately not recognized or paid for those efforts. It has transformed into an administrative and soul-killing exercise.

I wish I could say something positive. However, I do believe we are approaching a tipping point and the speed of that is increasing as it’s inversely proportional to falling satisfaction and ITL.

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Don Burr's avatar

I’m not a physician, but an elder patient with a few doctors helping best as they can. When I visit them, I often feel somewhat bad for them. Considering, all “the hard work, commitment, cost and time to be who they are and responsibility, liability etc. And, then to be ultimately directed by lawyers, insurance industry protocols, management types etc, and professional health alliance driven by politicians & bureaucrats, I’m also “concerned and ask the question, “am I receiving from my doctor his best advice”? I want to ask questions, “have I used up my allotted time”….am I too challenging…….is there, in all of the above, an unstated directive that limits, by cost involved and my age, the treatment I am receiving etc? “And” then there is the “system”……….. I never know what the true cost is, I never know what I am really paying, I never know “who is billing me” etc and I never know what I am paying for. And, and……………the nickel & dime stuff………..and the hours on the phone waiting for someone to talk to after pressing buttons and……….then wondering if you will still be alive by the time you receive a treatment or test or what ever.

Greed is the root cause, not by the medically trained pros, but by every other entity connected and leaching off those who have paid the price of hard work and commitment and of the AKA the customer/patient………..date of birth. Thank you Hillary, Obama, Joe etc

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