01/27/2016    Marc B. Klein, DPM

To Strike or Not to Strike?

After seeing the most recent poll about whether
physicians should strike or not, It hit a nerve
about what I have been thinking about for quite a
few years now. The insurance companies have
basically taken over the entire direction and
management of the medical practice.

Our state and national associations, and I don't
only mean podiatric but the AMA also, have
basically ignored this trend. Every time I would
bring this subject up to somebody with "the
powers to be”, they would say that it's collusion
and it's against the law and you can be put in
jail for that.

The APMA does a tremendous job in protecting our
specialty when dealing with insurance companies
regarding being a part of various health
programs, but I truly think that it's time they
also protect our members, and stand up to the
government with its new and constantly changing
regulations. I think that they should stand up
for the doctor who has basically lost all control
of his or her own practice. The solo practice is
slowly being eliminated in our country.

We have constantly rising costs (i.e.
rent,supplies etc.) and regulations, and at best
our reimbursements stay the same or go up one
percent every year or so. Now, new regulations
allow your fees to go down if you don’t follow
more and "newer" regulations. Please be clear, it
is not only the podiatric association its all of
the medial associations, especially the AMA as
they are the largest.

I think about Lech Walesa and how he started
“Solidarity” and brought about the Gdansk
agreement between the striking workers and the
government. He didn't do this by appeasing
politicians or trying to work with them. He
became an adversary to protect the workers. If
anyone thinks that the insurance companies think
of doctors as anything more than workers/pawns, I
think we all know the answer to that. If our
national Associations do not stick up for us,
maybe it's time that we stick up for ourselves.

I think that a strike should take place, for
longer than 1 day, maybe a week, just allowing
for the treatment of emergencies. Maybe, just
maybe, doing something like this, might rock the
boat enough to allow us to regain some measure of
control of our practices and our lives and also
stave off the future possibility of the
government taking control of medicine. We know
what that will do!

Marc B. Klein, DPM, Boca Raton, FL

There are no more messages in this thread.