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training,” by Richard Frank
I have held Dr. Richard Frank, now director of the Brookings Institution’s Center
on Health Policy, in great esteem, learned much from him, and once had the
privilege of working with him regarding Medicare payment for hospital psychiatric
care.
But I must part ways with him regarding his criticism of U.S. outpatient
psychiatrists who no longer accept payment from Medicare and/or Medicaid.
The refusal to accept the underpayments, huge and needless burdens, and
dismissal of professional decisions (of diagnosis and treatment) is one of the
methods left to physicians who ethically cannot endure the ravages of the
“corporatization of American health care,” packaged as if it were for our own
good. “Evil only succeeds by disguising itself as good.” (Thomas Aquinas)
The ethos of corporate and investor profits before patients is driving professional
burnout and moral injury, resulting in the continuing exodus of doctors and
nurses from patient care (2:41 sec video).
It is too late for negotiation and petty fixes with the kudzu of for-profit corporate
control over American healthcare. . I see three disruptive strategies available to
you and your families, doctors and nurses, and the hospitals now being trampled
by the corporate practice of medicine.
Do we want and can we bear the consequences of physicians becoming modern
day Neville Chamberlains?
— Lloyd I. Sederer, M.D., adjunct professor of the Columbia/Mailman
School of Public Health, and former Commissioner of Mental Health for the
City of NY and former chief medical officer of the New York State Office of
Mental Health.
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