Vachette Pathology

Recently I penned a letter to my Senator and Congressman expressing my concerns about the proposed national healthcare plan.  I sent a copy of this letter to all 450 pathologists that I work with urging them to do the same. Here is my opinion on this concept.

In our day to day activities here at Vachette we spend countless hours auditing and researching how claims are denied and unpaid by both government and non-government payers.  It seems sometimes the only goal of the employees of these organizations is to delay payment and frustrate our efforts. 

From a strictly financial point of view the national health plan appears to look like a national Medicaid plan and this is not good news.  We deal with Medicaid across the nation and see issues time and time again where the various Medicaid plans run out of money and refuse to even talk with a provider.  Imagine a national plan with a national bureaucracy behind it.  It boggles the mind the level of frustration this could cause.

I have enough experience in the clinical arena and enough knowledge in the international arena to understand the failures of other national healthcare plans.  After working five years in an inner city Emergency Center I understand the current healthcare system quite well.  As Americans we are not used to waiting for anything and even more unfamiliar with being denied obvious solutions.  From a clinical perspective I shudder to think of the issues when we start rationing dialysis or MRI usage.  

A bottom line example is easy to see from our neighbors in Canada.  Many times when they need medical services they simply come across the border and access our healthcare here in Michigan.  Also, from a laboratory perspective we are seeing private independent labs developing across Canada to provide access where the national plan seems wanting.

These are just my opinions but I recommend you look closely at what is being proposed and how it will affect not only your finances but also the direct care of the self pay population.  Perhaps this is the straw that will force more family practice physicians to start their boutique practices.  I am guessing in time there will be providers who simply say no to patients on a national healthcare plan.This will lead us directly where no one wants to be, a two-tiered health care system with half the value and twice the administration.