Category Archives: Mad as Hell Doctors

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Slow medicine

I am practicing slow medicine, just like the slow food movement.

It took a year to set up my clinic, because I wanted time with people more than anything. And how could I do that?

Low overhead, of course. The lower the expenses, the more time I would have with patients.

I did math and based it on medicare. I estimated what medicare would pay. I dropped obstetrics, can’t afford the malpractice and anyhow, the hospital was hostile by then. That cuts malpractice by two thirds. And I chose not to have a nurse, because people are the most expensive thing. Just me and a receptionist. And a biller once a week and a computer expert who rescues us when we kill another printer or need new and bigger computer brains for ICD 10.

My estimates were on target except that it took three times as long to build up patient numbers as I thought. Ah. Oops. I was advised to borrow twice what I thought I needed and that was good advice, because I had not counted on my sister dying or my father dying or me getting sick for a while…. but so far the clinic remains open.

Slow medicine. I schedule an hour with a new medicare patient or anyone new and complicated. People who say they aren’t complicated are lying, but we schedule 45 minutes for them. And for the really complicated, we have 45 minutes for follow ups. Most visits are 25 minutes: the only visit that is less is to take out stitches.

What does slow medicine allow? In the end it allows people to speak about things that they don’t know they need to talk about. A friend dying. Fears about a grandchild. Family fighting. The dying polar bears. The environment. This difficult election. And sometimes I think that freedom to speak about anything is the most theraputic part of the visit.

I had one woman last year who established care. Complicated. I think she was in her 70s. And the medical system had made mistakes and hurt her. Delayed diagnosis, delayed care. But she was laughing by the end of the visit. She stood in the hall and said, “This is the first time I can remember laughing in a doctor’s office. This is the first time in years that I can remember leaving with hope. And you haven’t DONE anything!”

….anything, except give time and listen.

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Fraud in Medicine: Heartwood

Here in my neck of the woods, people are continuing to quit medicine. Two  managers who have worked in the clinics eaten by the hospital are leaving on the same day, after 30 years. And another woman doctor, around my age, is retiring from medicine. She is NOT medicare age.

Meanwhile, the Mayo Clinic is publishing articles about how to turn older physicians into “heartwood”.

http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(15)00469-3/fulltext

“As trees age, the older cells at the core of the trunk lose some of their ability to conduct water. The tree allows these innermost cells to retire…. This stiffened heartwood core…continues to help structurally support the tree…. Here a tree honors its elderly cells by letting them rest but still giving them something meaningful to do. We non-trees could take a lesson from that.” Spike Carlsen

Oh, wow, let’s honor the elderly. Even elderly physicians. Instead of what, killing them? Currently we dishonor them, right?

But what is the core of the issue? Skim down to “Decreased patient contact”:

“Already, many physicians are choosing to decrease their work to less than full-time, with resultant decreased patient encounters and decreased institutional revenue. Prorating compensation to match full-time equivalent worked will aid in financial balance, but the continued cost of benefits will remain. However, when that benefit expense is compared with the expense of recruiting a new physician (estimated by some to approach $250,000 per physician), the cost of supporting part-time practicing physicians becomes more attractive.”

Ok, so the core of the matter. “Decreased institutional revenue” and the employer still has to pay BENEFITS. NOTHING ABOUT THE QUALITY OF CARE FOR PATIENTS.

Again, the problem is still that you can’t really “do” a patient in twenty minutes, and that full time is really 60 or more hours a week. To be thorough, I  have to absorb the clinical picture for each patient: chief complaint, history of present illness, past medical history, allergies, family history, social history (this includes tobacco, drugs and alcohol), vital signs, review of systems and physical exam. And old records, x-rays, pathology reports, surgical reports, laboratory reports. I fought with my administration about the 18 patient a day quota. I said: ok, I have a patient every twenty minutes for 4 hours in the morning, a meeting scheduled at lunch, four hours in the afternoon. When am I supposed to call a specialist, do refills, read the lab results, look at xray results, call a patient at home to be sure they are ok? The administration replied that I should only spend 8 minutes with the patient and then I would have 12 minutes between patients to do paperwork. I replied that they’d picked the Electronic Medical Record telling us that we could do the note in the room. I could, after three years of practice. But it nearly always took me twenty-five minutes. I would hit send and our referral person had so much experience that she could have the referral approved before my patient made it to the front desk. BUT I felt like I was running as fast as I possibly could all day on a treadmill. Also, the hour lunch meetings pissed me off. I get 20 minutes with a patient and they get an hour meeting? Hell, no! I set my pager for a 20 minute alarm every time I went into a meeting and I walked out when it buzzed. I needed to REST!

After a few weeks of treadmill, I dropped a half clinic day. But of course that didn’t go into effect for another month and I was tired and ran late daily. And every 9 hour clinic day generated two hours of paperwork minimum: nights, weekends, 5 am when I would not get interrupted and could THINK. Do you really want a doctor to review your lab work when they are really tired and have worked for 11 hours or 24 hours? Might they miss something? It might have been best if I had been quiet and just cancelled two people a day, since the front desk knew I was not coming out of any room until I was done, but I argued instead.

The point is, you would like to see a doctor who listens and is thorough. You do not actually want a medical system where there all these other people who read your patient history forms and enter them in to the computer and your doctor tries to find the time to read it, like drinking from a fire hose. If we want doctors and patients to be happy, then doctors need time with patients and we need to off the insurance companies who add more and more and more complicated requirements for the most minimal care. One system, one set of rules, we’ll fight over the details, medicare for all.

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Art at Quimper Family Medicine

I change the art at clinic, these for the summer. We had four reproductions up before, of alchemy paintings from the 1400-1600s. I thought they were creepy but also interesting and beautiful.

The painting on the left is by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway, of my sister, Christine Robbins Ottaway. On the right is an oil by an artist that I don’t know. It looks like my father. I inherited art, but I keep finding beautiful pieces. At least I can display a little and rotate them with the seasons…

 

 

 

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DIY cat fud

This is for Ronovan writes weekly haiku poetry prompt #87, words class and firm.

I try to stand firm
health insurance corporate
fraud stand firm with class

Boa cat brought her own breakfast in the other day. I am so appalled and horrified by the health insurance corporate fraud I see daily. The patients and I are the mouse and the health insurance corporations are the cat….. we have to stop them.

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Fraud in medicine: prior authorization III

I see a patient who has had prolonged sinus symptoms AND her right upper molar has been irritated for weeks, but then Saturday it started hurting. She saw her dentist. The dentist did x-rays and said it’s her sinus. “But my tooth hurts too.”

On exam, her gum is bright red above the tooth, but not swollen as it can be with an abscess. No fever. No bright red spot over the maxillary sinus.

I call our independent radiology service and ask for a limited sinus CAT scan. She is off on Mondays only, it is Monday, she is out of town next Monday. Can they do it today? Yes, but she needs a prior authorization.

I call her insurance, after looking up the CPT code for sinus CT on google. As usual I have to enter numbers before I talk to a human:
patient insurance id number
my tax id number
my national provider index number
and others until I get a human.
Then I have to give the numbers AGAIN because the insurance company deliberately makes it inefficient, even though I have entered them into the phone it doesn’t transfer to the representative and you know that it COULD.
I give my name
patient’s name
patient’s date of birth
clinic address
clinic phone
clinic fax number
tax id
national provider index number
and finally explain: we need a prior authorization for a limited sinus CT and she has five ICD 10 symptom codes.
“She doesn’t need a prior authorization.” says the rep.
“What?” I say, “So it’s covered.”
“We don’t guarantee coverage, but we don’t give prior authorization.”
“What do you mean, you don’t guarantee coverage. I am calling to check.”
“We review the chart afterwards and THEN decide if it’s covered.”
“No. That isn’t good enough. I want to speak to someone who will check the codes and tell us if it will be covered.”
“I will have to transfer you to the (patient something).”
“Fine. Transfer our information please too.”
We go on hold. Time passes.
We are back to a recording:

TALKING TO A REPRESENTATIVE DOES NOT GUARANTEE COVERAGE OF A TEST. PRESS ONE IF YOU ACCEPT THIS.

No two. No other options are offered. I press one.
I talk to the new representative. “I have five diagnosis codes and want to know if the sinus CT will be covered. She is off and they can do it today. She is only off on Mondays.”
“We don’t do prior authorizations.”
“Isn’t there ANY WAY we can find out?”
“You can mail a letter to a PO box and we will review it and let you know.”
I am ….. hard to describe…. my head hurts.
“Would you like the PO box address?”
“How long does that take? Yes we want it. Don’t they have a fax?”
We get the fax number too. I hang up and look helplessly at my patient. “I think it will be covered. I would recommend we do it.”
“Ok.” She says. Her face and tooth hurt.

I call the independent radiology center and set it up for 2 pm.

They call back in the afternoon. She has a sinus infection and the tooth is bad too, they don’t quite look connected. I call the Ear Nose and Throat specialist who wants her on three weeks of augmentin if she tolerates it and then to see her. I thank him and get it rolling.

But….. ok, so the insurance companies contract with me and the patient say that they can change the benefits any time they want. They “notify” me with postcards with online links. Like I have time to read and remember the changes for …. 50 different plans? There are over 500 in the US.

When are we going to stop letting insurance companies take our money and refuse care and refuse to pay the physician and the radiologist? Medicare for all, one set of rules, I COULD LEARN THEM. I can memorize huge amounts of data: I am already busily memorizing the ICD10 diagnosis codes. There are only 48,000.

And I don’t know yet if her insurance will pay for the sinus CT…..

The picture is from Lake Matinenda in Ontario: no computers at our cabin, no outlets, phones mostly don’t work…. heaven.

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practical medicine

This week I see a patient that I sent to a specialist that I don’t know well.

“How is he?” I like to get feedback on the specialists.

Q grimaces. “He knows his stuff. But…. he’s by the book. I complained about a side effect. He says it is not listed. But I go on line and there are lots of people complaining about that side effect.”

“Hmmm.” I say.

“He doesn’t really listen if it doesn’t fit…. if it’s not in the book.” Q brightens. “But I am going to call the nurse line for the drug and see what they say.”

“Cool.” I say. “Some doctors are very by the book. I’m into practical medicine: use it if it works. Don’t care if it’s witchcraft.”

Q giggles.

“What about the rash?” I say.

Q pulls up a pant leg. There is almost no rash. “He said it wasn’t related to the problem.”

We both look at Q’s leg. “Looks better to me.” I say. “Looks a lot better.”

“Yeah,” says Q. “It does. It looks nearly gone.” The rash was what initially triggered the testing that led to the diagnosis that led to the specialist.

“I use whatever I can figure out for people.”

Once I had an elderly woman with an intestinal bleed. She is transferred to Virginia Mason and goes through every possible test to localize the bleed. Upper endoscopy, lower endoscopy, swallow the camera, CT scan, probably pet scan and bone scan. Can’t find it. It is too slow a leak to use radioactive tagged red blood cells. She comes back.

I transfuse her every three weeks. This is not good. She will develop antibodies eventually.

She goes back to Virginia Mason. They do it all again. The surgeons discuss opening her up. “No.” they say. “Too frail at 88. She will die on the vent.” They send her back.

I am still transfusing her every three weeks. I am grumpy as hell.

Her daughter says, “I have a friend in Canada who knows a scientist. He is studying aloe vera. They said take aloe vera twice a day. What do you think?”

“Well I don’t have anything! Try it! We will test a chem panel in two weeks and watch the blood count!”

She takes aloe vera twice a day. Her blood count stabilizes. No more transfusion. Happy dance. Not absorbed or at least doesn’t bother her kidneys or liver tests….

After a year she says, “Can I try stopping it?”

“Sure,” I say. “We will check a blood count in 2 weeks.”

It drops. She goes back on aloe vera.

Practical medicine. If the book has nothing, try something else…..

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I will fight no more

I am tired of fighting
I am tired of fighting for justice
I am tired of fighting discrimination
I am tired of fighting for health care for all

I am tired of fighting insurance companies
I am tired of fighting medicare’s contractee
I am tired of fighting for prior authorization
I am tired

I will fight no more forever

I heal
I am a healer
I am trying to heal patients
I am trying to help patients heal

I am a healer
I help heal cancer
I help heal heart disease
I help heal PTSD
I help

heal cancer
heal heart disease
heal PTSD
heal addiction

I am a healer

heal the insurance company
heal the medicare contractor
heal the pharmaceutical company
heal

heal anxiety
heal depression
heal addiction

I will fight no more forever

I heal

The legs in the photograph don’t look delicate, do they? They are strong and beautiful and powerful. I took this at the National Junior Synchronized Swimming Competition in 2009. Those girls on the edge of being women are strong, they are a team, they work and play together. They have the skills and the strength to lift their bodies out of the water that far using their arms… think about the practice and strength needed to do that. We all want to heal and create fun and play and beauty. Let’s work as a team.

also on everything2.com

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fraud in medicine: prior authorization I

Prior authorization is where, in the insane United States medical system, the doctor orders a test or medicine. The insurance requires “prior authorization”, that is, the doctor or their office have to call or go on line to fill out forms to get the prior authorization. Otherwise the test or therapy or medicine or even surgery will not be covered by the insurance and the patient eats the bill. Over 60% of bankruptcies in the US are now over medical bills*.

In most doctors’ offices, the prior authorization is done in the back rooms. Employees are on the computer or on the phone trying to obtain the permission, the code number, the magic words that will help the patient. This is a HUGE business and a scam as well. Physicians for a National Health Care Program estimated in 2011 that it costs at least $82,975 PER PHYSICIAN PER YEAR to have a person calling.* Now, there is a person on the other end receiving that call or going over the forms. That person is paid with your insurance premium. Is that health care? It seems more like a barrier to health care. Let’s look at an example.

I do my prior authorizations in the room with the patient. I only have a front desk person, no back room people, and anyhow, if I do it face to face with the patient, I can charge the insurance company for the call. It is face to face counseling and coordination of care. I don’t get paid well for this, but it’s worth it for the patient education.

Yesterday I called for a patient. The insurance company first has a recording that tells me it is recording this conversation. I am too, in the chart note. Then it reminds me I could do all this on line. Well, that is sort of true. I could, but every insurance company has a different website, they all require logins and passwords and it would take me hours to learn them all. Nope, not doing that. After the message it says: “Please enter the physicians NPI number.” I do. Then it leads me through choices: confirm the patient is insured, check the status of a prior authorization, appeal a prior authorization, initiate a prior authorization. That one.
At 3 minutes 50 seconds, I get a human. We are on speaker phone.
“This is Rex. You are calling for prior authorization?”
“Yes. This is Dr. Lizard. Mr. X is in the room.”
“Please spell the doctor’s name.” They are not used to doctors calling.
“Please give the NPI number.” (ok, we typed that in. But every time you are transferred, you have to give all of the information again. I am not kidding.)
“Please give your clinic address. Please give your clinic phone number. Please give your clinic tax ID number. Please give your clinic fax number.”
I do.
“Please give the patient id number. Please give the patient name. Please give the patient date of birth.”
Ok.
My patient is looking amazed. This is how insurance companies treat the doctors who call them? Yep.
“What medicine are you authorizing?”
“A compounded testosterone.”
“Please list the ingredients.”
Crap. didn’t think of that. “Ok, we want to authorize an fda approved one.”
That is entered. “What are the instructions for the patient?”
“What is the dose or strength?”
“What is the diagnosis?”
“He has a condition from birth with no testosterone.”
I have to spell the condition for Rex.
“What is the ICD 10 code?”
I give that.
“Have you measured a testosterone level?”
“Yes. It’s zero. His body doesn’t make testosterone. Since birth.”
My patient is rolling his eyes.
“The form will be sent for review and you should get a fax within 24-72 hours regarding the authorization. Here is a number for tracking.”
“Thank you, we are recording this phone call as face to face counseling and coordination of care in the chart.”
Phone call is 13 minutes and 50 seconds. That is a fast one, actually. Most are 25-30 minutes and I fought for an hour once when a patient’s prescription coverage was cancelled.

I wish that every doctor in the country would do one prior authorization on the phone once a week with the patient in the room. The doctors’ heads would blow off. They might finally see what the current system is doing and how the insurance companies throw more and more and more barriers up to refuse people care.

And how is it a scam? One way is that the patient calls the insurance. The insurance has people who only talk to patients. That person says, “Have your doctors office call for a prior authorization.” The patient calls the doctor’s office. The doctors office calls the insurance, but they are talking to a different branch of the insurance company. That branch tells the doctors office “We don’t cover that.” The doctors office calls the patient, who then thinks that the doctor’s office has screwed up the prior authorization.

How do I know that? With the person in the room, the insurance tells me “No.” I have had patients say, “Your company told me yesterday that all I needed was for the doctor to call!” The insurance person replied, “I only talk to doctors. It is another part of the company that talks to patients.” I have also had an insurance person say “Take me off speaker phone, I am only allowed to talk to physician’s offices, not to patients.” Riiiiiight. I took him off but put him right back on. My patients are outraged and furious: at the insurance, not me. The insurance companies are doing brilliant business plan triangulation and I hope whoever thought it up and whoever allows it as a business plan roasts in hell. No, instead I hope that they wake up and realize how many people they are hurting and I hope that they turn and work to heal a broken sick system.
*http://www.pnhp.org/new_bankruptcy_study/Bankruptcy-2009.pdf
http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/docs/Bankruptcy_Fact_Sheet.pdf
**http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/august/us-doctors-administrative-costs-4-times-higher-than-in-canada
http://www.pnhp.org/news/2014/august/adventures-in-prior-authorization

I took the photograph at Lake Matinenda in August 2015. It is of a storm. A storm is here in medicine: people versus the corporations who prey on us. We need to heal the system and heal the fear and greed.

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Fraud in medicine: medicare application

Medicare quit paying my clinic at the end of July, on the 31st.

I was still half time in clinic, we were interviewing a new receptionist as my receptionist of five years wanted to retire by August first. We got some sort of notification from medicare, but their letters are very cryptic.

My new receptionist was needing orientation and help and I was really tired after July. I redid the medicare application and sent it in. We continued to see medicare patients and turn in the bills.

Our medicare contractor is noridian. They sent us a cryptic letter saying that something was wrong with the application. This was, mind you, a renewal. I had been seeing medicare patients for five years in my clinic.

I call them. I am given a name and a number to identify the call. I have two Ptan numbers, one for me as a physician and a second for the clinic. The first call said that my personal Ptan application was correct but the clinic one wasn’t.

I did it again and mailed it. Second day air. He said that our payments should be released in 10-14 days.

Ten days. Nothing. Fourteen. Nothing. I am pulling from savings to run the clinic. I call a second time. Again I am given a name and a number. She said I had to CALL to get paid once the application was received. I said the first guy didn’t say that. She said another 10-14 days.

We wait. After ten days I call. A third number and person. Once again I have a cryptic email. I ask about the PTan number on the email, which is not my clinic’s Ptan number. Oh, says the man, that is what is wrong with your application. He says to do form (numbernumbernumber B) not form (numbernumbernumber A). And it will be 10-14 days after they receive it.

I do it AGAIN. I do notice that all of the old copies of the form in our file have the PTan numbers wrong. Weird. They have been paying me for five years.

Ten days. I call a fourth time. She says that it will be 30 days not 10 to 14 until medicare lets me know if my application is correct. Or they might pay me after 10-14 days. They aren’t, so I argue that something must still be wrong. What is it? She can’t tell me. I want a supervisor. She says that I can talk to a supervisor in 10-14 days. We figure out that the Ptan number on the application is correct. I say, “I am writing my congresswoman.” and hang up.

So I do. I find my Senator’s email and I write to her. I have been a rural family practice doctor for 25 years and I saw a 98 year old yesterday and a 91 year old today and I LIKE my elderly patients, but I have HAD it with medicare, at least with the contractor noridian that is running medicare for my state. I list the phone call dates and names and identifying numbers and I say FIX IT because otherwise I am for the first time in 25 years seriously considering quitting medicare.

Two days later noridian sends an email saying they are releasing my payments.

The next day we get a direct deposit for $9000.00. That is a START.

One week later we get a call from noridian explaining what is wrong with our application. Not just one thing. Noridian doesn’t seem to have a copy of our business license from five years ago. We have to put the personal Ptan on page xgyb-14. They want details about the nursing home. Do I do home visits?

The noridian person explains that our application has actually been wrong for five years, but now they are getting audited so they have to get everything cleaned up.

So THEY have KNOWN it was wrong for five years, but held my payments since July, while they try to get their act together and tell me what the hell is wrong with it?

I want to be paid INTEREST for all the time I have spent on the phone and redoing the cryptic application.

And many thanks to my congresswoman, for keeping my clinic open.

I took the picture at the Kinetic Sculpture Festival here in September. The outfits make more sense than dealing with noridian, that’s for sure….

first posted on everything2.com on 11/30/15

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Adverse Childhood Experiences 8: Social cues

I am thinking about social cues for people with high Adverse Childhood Experience scores. With crisis brain wiring the response to social cues may be very different than what is considered the acceptable “norm”.

I always miss the cue when someone says “see you later”. I think “When?” Then I realize it’s a social comment and they do not in fact plan to see me later. I have a moment of disappointment. I do the same thing when someone says, “Let’s get together for dinner.” or “Let’s have coffee some time!” or “I will call you back!” or “Why don’t you come to our cabin some day?” Yes, I think, when?

And then I think “Liar.”

So I fail social cues….. or do I? Maybe I am not responding to the “correct” or “conventional” or “nice” social cues.

My father drank too much and especially while I was in high school and college. And my mother would enable and cover up and pretend nothing was happening. Children in this situation, which is way too common, develop special skills.

My sister was three years younger. As adults we discussed the stages of drinking and which one we hated most. We would both walk in the house from school with trepidation. In the door and almost feeling the air: what is happening? Am I safe? Do I need to hide? How dangerous is it? How much will it hurt?

I walked in once during high school and missed the cue. I was thinking about something. I thought my father was asleep in the kitchen. I went in to get something. I was very quiet so as not to wake him. I made a cup of tea.

He was not asleep, or else he woke up. And it was the worst stage, or the one I hated most.
Not physical violence. But he started talking. One of things he said was “You can tell me anything.” Now, he meant it. But he was crying by then and I knew I did not want to tell him anything and all I wanted was desperately to leave the room. And neither my sister or my mother was home. Finally I was crying too, because I said “I just want to go read my book.” and he was more crushed and maudlin and emotional and crying. And I tore out of the room and up to my room, as my mother walked in.

I did not cry much. Ever.

I refused to talk to my mother about it.

The next day she said to me, “Your father told me that you were talking about Lamont.” Lamont Cranston was a very beloved cat, The Shadow, who was missing now. Dead, we thought.

I said nothing. Because we had not talked about Lamont. So either my father was lying or else he’d had a blackout, didn’t remember and was making shit up. And if I told my mother the truth, she would back him and deny what I said or make it into a joke.

The stages my sister and I identified were:
1. sober
2. a little bit
3. goofy/silly/makes no sense
4. crying
5. asleep

We were ok with 2 and 5. I don’t think we saw 1 for years. We disliked 3 intensely, especially in public and especially when our mother was doing a cover up dance. And 4 we hated.
And yet I loved my parents and mostly miss them now that they are gone. Except when I remember things like this.

So, what is the point?

I miss “social cues” because that is NOT what the crisis brain, the ACE score brain, pays attention to. I am paying attention to far more intuitive things: body language. Whether what the person is saying matches what I know about them and what they have done in the past. I am looking for whether this person is telling me the truth.

I don’t trust instantly. Why would I?

I said to a counselor once that reading the “cloud” around the person was terribly useful in medicine but made me a social misfit. “I don’t know how to turn it off.” I said. She grimaced and said, “Why do you think I went into counseling?” She said, “I can’t turn it off either but I have learned to ignore it during social situations.” I was in my forties before I realized that there are people who don’t sense this cloud, who trust people until the person is dishonest, who understand that it is just fine to say “Let’s get together.” and not mean it.

Because actually, when someone says “I’ll see you later.” and they don’t mean it, they are saying an untruth. They are not planning to see me later. They don’t mean it. And my brain automatically files that under evidence that this person is not trustworthy. To them it is a social cue that is polite. To some of us, it is clearly something that is not actually true. I pick up on a cloud of social cues, but not the ones that are acceptable or conventional. And I am not the only one.

my sister on the left and me on the right, in the 1960s