Aspirations II

Supposing that on our road to greatness, we discover that we are not as skilled and we do not get the results that we expect.  What happens then?  Do we turn our backs on this osteopathic stuff that we love so much?  Probably not, it would be too costly.  In addition, it would be an admission of failure.  In any profession,  most people end up compromising. 

In my pediatric practice, I am pleased to say that I have not had to do this.  I do not accept Medi-Cal so that you don’t have to sit in a crowded waiting room, your child exposed to other sick children (sorry, I’ve done my time, mission trips, volunteering in free clinics -this was before children, when i was still young and idealistic).  I have not compromised on my stance regarding informed consent as the basis for a reasonable vaccine schedule (i.e., i have not succumbed to the HMO incentives for vaccination along the CDC schedule; yes, there is one financial incentive – this is another post for another day).

So the lesson of this post is Aspiration is inversely proportional to Compromise; in non-mathematical terms, they are diametrically opposed, they are antithetical to each other.  As you give up aspiring, you end up compromising.  As you compromise (your standards), you have really stomped on any spark that was once aspiration.  What is happening with “healthcare insurance?”  This is an oxymoron.

Insurance, in any other business arena, is just that.  They take your money and you don’t want to have to collect; life insurance is really death insurance and you don’t want to have to collect.  Health insurance, is no longer insurance.  I would call it medical contracts cards, that is what we are buying monthly with our premiums.  People use and consume.   Healthcare is no longer healthcare, it is disease maintenance.  It then, in effect, our premiums purchase a “disease maintenance medical discount contracts card.”  What a mouthful.  Believe it or not, most doctors, we are stuck in this cycle as well and we usually choose not to consume and we ourselves purchase super high deductibles so that we don’t not use.  When we do use, the cost to us at the discounted contract rate is considered a reasonable expenditure for information.

What happens then is that the increased cost of medical insurance comes from usuage.  When usuage increases, the insurance companies squeeze profits from employers, the insured, and the doctors.  So usuage leads to cuts, which leads to decreased quality, increased volume in waiting rooms, less time with patients.

So as you can well guess, insurance and the standard, biochemical, biostatistical model of medicine is not is not compatible with osteopathy.  For those of us who are traditional osteopathic physicians aspiring to greatness, we merely tolerate insurance for a short time…

Again, it is very important for you to share this blog with your friends, co-workers and families…more in the next few posts…

Explore posts in the same categories: Chronic Pain, Pediatrics

Tags: insurance, osteopathy

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