Thursday, June 27, 2013

Is the Medical Profession in Need of a Defibrilator/Pacemaker or a Hospice Consult?

Ciampi Family Practice in Maine

Somewhere between the IRS, the NSA and the ACA, the practice of medicine is on life support.  My profession, if it still is a profession, is powerless to effect the transformation needed to realign with the actual health care needs of our nation.  We failed.

The cardiologists may say we just need a consult with an electrophysiologist to get us an implantable defibrillator to get the profession out of a dangerous arrhythmia, not wanting to remind us that 1/3 of the recipients get significant cognitive dysfunction as a result.  Just check our cholesterol and take a statin?  Sorry, there are no last minute saves of medical practice.  (AND statins are way over-rated and massively over-prescribed, anyway).

Radical suggestion: Click on the link above to read about Ciampi Family Practice in Maine.  Let's get all the family doctors and go "back to the future".  Drop all the insurance relationships.  Get away from the pollution of the phony quality initiatives and the Medicare audits.  (Not to mention non-payment from time to time).  Can Family Medicine avoid the Hospice consult that's been called for the practice of medicine?

Direct Primary Care is waiting in the wings (in over 500 medical offices already).  See www.dpcare.org for more information.  It's one way to get refreshed and potentially "reboot" one part of medical practice.

More later, including a strategy to care for the poor.

2 comments:

  1. Direct Primary Care. A non-traditional alternative that, like most alternatives, are actually very traditional.

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  2. For me, the real issue here is not about the significance of a defibrillator or pacemaker, but the right use of the medical device. Medical professionals should be equipped with the practice other than just the knowledge. This only suggests that in medical profession, the application and practice of what you have learned is more important than the others.



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