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Many of us have already felt the effect of the malpractice crisis
in the past year. This is part of a larger crisis involving the entire medical community. Insurance companies
are decreasing reimbursements to doctors and Medicare is threatening to to do the same. Meanwhile overhead costs
are rising because of increasing documentation and the need to hire more employees to handle the burden. Soaring medical
liability insurance rates have added tremendously to the problem to the point we are now seeing some of our favorite doctors,
many of them young and in the prime of their career, leaving for other pursuits or just retiring. Dr.
Lord (GYN) first stopped delivering babies, and then moved back to Montgomery County for relief of his overwhelming malpractice
rates. Drs. Raskin & Kahn (GI), Drs. Kundrat, So, Mikhail, and Parkhurst (Int. Med.) and Dr.
Battle (Surgery) left their practices because escalating costs overwhelmed their practices. These are just
the doctors in Laurel. Dr. Machado, from our practice, left for institutional medicine. Our own practice nearly folded in
2004 because of poor revenues and high overhead - the doctors had not been paid for 4 months that year. We
are truly in a crisis!
Although we have reasonably good representation in Congress through
such organizations as the American Medical Association (AMA) and MedChi, our voice alone will not solve this crisis.
You, the patient, must be vocal in your desires and demands before anything will change. We
truly believe there will not be enough doctors to take care of everybody if nothing is done in the near future - a recent
survey found that 50% of primary care doctors are unhappy and are considering leaving primary care. You
must educate yourself and write to the appropriate representatives with your thoughts. Do not be concerned about writing
anything elegant, just get your thoughts and concerns down on paper and mail it to your representatives - do it now
- you will feel proud that you made the effort to help the situation.
For more information, please see the page on the Future of Healthcare
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