hizgeorgiapeach
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Lynnxz
Care to explain this a little more? quote:
Your answer leads me to believe that you are either in the health industry or the insurance industry both being a play on words.
If his experience with HMOs and insurance companies is anything like mine has been for the past several years (through the late stages of mom's illness and death, and concerning dad's stuff since the stroke) - then the assumption is relatively easy to make.
It's been my experience over the past several years that the doctors who worked for an HMO were keen to order up test after test after test because that was the only way they could make what They thought they were worth. The base rate paid by the HMO appearantly didn't match the grandiose figure they expected to be making when they went into medicine, so tacking on a bunch of extra tests would bring that figure closer to what they expected.
As for insurance companies - eh - even though dad worked for one (which did Not do medical insurance - only things like Homeowners and Vehical) - I have a particularly LOW opinion of that sort of business. My opinion of medical insurance companies is low enough that any time I hear someone defending them - my first thought is that they must work for one. Mom had a particularly aggressive specialist physician for the first several years after she was diagnosed with Lupus. He was aggressive for a Reason - he has lupus himself, and was both a specialist in the field of rhumatology and clinical researcher in autoimmune diseases. He put mom on a regimine that was Working, and had her on the brink of her Lupus symptoms (which had been particularly severe when she started seeing him) to the point of being ready to go into remission after 5 years of various forms of therapy and medication combinations. (They tried various until they found a combination that was very effective For Her - although none of the medications in use were specifically designed to combat Lupus. They were, however, medications that he'd spent significant time studying as a researcher and rhumy, and which he'd found effective for various other patients.) Then the insurance company decided that he was "to aggressive" and that his treatment methods were "to experimental" and "unproven for efficancy in the course of the specified disease." What did that mean? That they were suddenly no longer willing to pay for treatments - or that particular Specialist as a physician. So mom had to switch doctors right as she was reaching a turning point in the progress of the lupus, and come off the effective treatement she'd been getting. While the new physician was good, and was a collegue of the original specialist in the field of rhumatology - he was no where near as aggressive in treatment methods, no where near as motivated towards doing more than maintaining the status quo and treating symptoms when they sprung up during flares. Unfortunately, without the aggressive treatment - her symptoms returned in short order, and started a (to me) rapid downward spiral. She was dead 3 years later at the age of 55, due to complications of the Lupus which, prior to changing physicians, was on the brink of being under control and in remission, with a life expectancy into her 70s or 80s. While the fungal pnumonia that's on the death certificate might be the Official cause of death, and the Direct cause of death - I will always hold the beancounting pricks at the insurance company partially to blame on an Ethical and Moral level - because it was their moronic Medical decision when they weren't doctors that allowed the disease process to remain out of control. I won't even go into the run around and bullshit the insurance company put me through, as dad's PoA, after he had his stroke and before they finally managed to find a loophole that allowed them to cancel his insurance. I won't bother going into it because even now, 2 years and psych therapy later, even thinking about that steaming pile of manure tends to send me into a screaming rage with a desire to go Postal in their office.
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Rhi
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RE: Are emergency room doctors retarded? - 
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