Sunday, April 10, 2011

Federal Workers Worried About a Shutdown Should Do What Doctors Do....

Go to work anyway.

Disaster narrowly averted, the government is still operating and federal workers have nothing to worry about, but the argument holds. In a interesting article Dr. Edwin Leap, posting at KevinMD asks some interesting questions about how healthcare providers are treated and what their underlying motivations. It is worth your time to read the whole thing, but an excerpt:

It is ironic, but hardly surprising, that the government suddenly so concerned with being unfunded continually demands unfunded work from hospitals and medical providers. Or at best, expects underfunded work.

I ask you, friends and colleagues in the world of medicine, how many physicians see patients at the markedly reduced Medicare rate, the criminally reduced Medicaid rate or the tyrannical EMTALA rate of zero!

How many physicians, in attempting to do the right thing, find their care denied by Medicare on technicalities, or suddenly find themselves targeted for fraud for misunderstanding the complexities of the already inappropriately low compensation the government pays them?

Federal workers are better paid, with better compensation packages, than their private sector counterparts. Yet, when there is a risk to livelihood there is no benevolence. Why?Please bookmark!

No comments:

Post a Comment