- Revenue Cycle Management
- COVID-19
- Reimbursement
- Diabetes Awareness Month
- Risk Management
- Patient Retention
- Staffing
- Medical Economics® 100th Anniversary
- Coding and documentation
- Business of Endocrinology
- Telehealth
- Physicians Financial News
- Cybersecurity
- Cardiovascular Clinical Consult
- Locum Tenens, brought to you by LocumLife®
- Weight Management
- Business of Women's Health
- Practice Efficiency
- Finance and Wealth
- EHRs
- Remote Patient Monitoring
- Sponsored Webinars
- Medical Technology
- Billing and collections
- Acute Pain Management
- Exclusive Content
- Value-based Care
- Business of Pediatrics
- Concierge Medicine 2.0 by Castle Connolly Private Health Partners
- Practice Growth
- Concierge Medicine
- Business of Cardiology
- Implementing the Topcon Ocular Telehealth Platform
- Malpractice
- Influenza
- Sexual Health
- Chronic Conditions
- Technology
- Legal and Policy
- Money
- Opinion
- Vaccines
- Practice Management
- Patient Relations
- Careers
Physicians should return to direct pay system
A reader writes that physicians can eliminate payer interference by reverting to the pre-Medicare system of being paid directly by patients.
Hear, hear to Craig Wax, DO’s thoughts. (“ACA: It’s not what the doctor (or voters) ordered,” August 25, 2013.) Government-owned healthcare only works to the point that catastrophic injuries are covered, but for the day-to-day patients that we see, it doesn’t work.
I don’t understand why physicians are slow to accept how payment was made pre-1965 as viable for the business portion of practicing medicine. Patient comes in, pays for the visit, is given a receipt, and submits it for payment.
If physicians switch back to this form of payment, then we can say bye-bye to interference from payers as to how we practice. No more nonphysicians dictating which medicines, which tests, etc. Then we can get to true meaningful measures on the care of patients instead of insurance deciding.
Lawrence Voesack, MD
Odessa, Texas
