Last week, I posted a Blog titled “Paying  Doctors for Quality.” Today, this message arrived via email from the American Academy of Dermatology: (I will refrain from using all the expletives that come to mind when I read this ‘hogwash.’)

“Massachusetts Reviving Plans To Revamp Payments For Doctors, Hospitals.

The Boston Globe (9/27, Kowalczyk) reports that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's (D) administration "is reviving the state's ambitious plan to change how doctors and hospitals are paid, aiming to hand the Legislature a specific proposal by Jan. 1 and end months of disagreement over how to control health care spending." The state secretary of HHS convened a meeting earlier this month to draft a blueprint for "scrapping" the current "fee for service" system, in which "doctors and hospitals are typically paid a negotiated fee for every procedure and visit." This system "is widely viewed as lacking coordination and encouraging unnecessary tests and procedures." Instead, officials are looking at a system called "global payments," which "would require doctors, hospitals, and other providers to band together into groups" that "would split the payments and better coordinate patient care, thereby improving quality."”

Since I do not expect to practice much longer (based on the path Medicine is taking), my comments and efforts to share my thoughts in these Blogs do NOT stem from attempts to maintain my ‘bottom line.’ I am writing from the point of view of a VERY well informed and very worried patient. You DON’T want doctors and hospitals to be laden with disincentives for care. We patients will suffer the consequences. The difference between most non-medical patients and doctors-who-are-patients, is that we doctors have a fighting chance of knowing when we are being screwed. The rest of you won’t know what you do not know. You may become ‘history.’

Massachusetts has been “leading the way” as an experiment in Obamacare, and the experiment has been failing (no matter what former Gov. Romney may try to say). This payment scheme, designed to save costs, will NOT improve quality, but will hasten American Medical Care along the road to destruction. 

There are 19 medical candidates running for the House. Vote for Americans that actually know something about healthcare.

Please support them (if you can) and spread the word.

AZ-01     Paul Gosar - Dentist,
CO-01  Mike Fallon - ER Physician,
IA-02    Mariannette Miller-Meeks - Ophthalmologist,
IL-07    Mark Weiman - Dentist,
IN-08     Larry Bucshon - Cardiothoracic Surgeon, 
MA-7    Gerry Dembrowski - Primary Care,
MD-01   Andy Harris - Anesthesiologist,  
MD-2   Marcelo Cardarelli - Cardiothoracic Surgeon,
MI-01   Dan Benishek - General Surgeon,
MI-15    Robert Steele - Cardiologist,
NC-02  Renee Ellmers - Nurse,
NC-04     BJ Lawson - Neurosurgeon,
NV-03  Joe Heck - Osteopath,  
NY-28    Jill Rowland - Dentist,
NY-19    Nan Hayworth - Ophthalmologist,
TN-06    Diane Black - Nurse, 
TN-04  Scott DesJarlais - General Practice,
TX-16   Tim Besco - Nurse,
TX-25     Donna Campbell - Ophthalmologist.

Watch for the Next Blog: Carly Fiorina – A Woman Who KNOWS the Medical ‘Score.’