There are areas of medicine that are profitable: cardiovascular medicine, stroke management, orthopedics (ie hip surgeries), diabetes care. In other words the problems that the now retiring baby boomers will soon be dealing with.
You can see hospitals setting themselves up to specialize in these areas where the money will be, building new wings with state of the art equipment and hotel like furnishings. Getting certifications in these areas so that they can make a big banner touting their "expertise" and hang it on the side of the building.
The parts of the hospital where people go who don't fit into the above categories are left to deteriorate. The medical/surgical floors, the emergency room. They don't make the money, so the money doesn't go there. You aren't going to find wood floors and single rooms in the med/surg areas.
This is especially true in a private inner city hospital. The places where the insured people go are nice. The med/surg area and the emergency room where the people on medicaid/medicare end up are shabby. Is this the future of medicine?
10 comments:
The future of medicine is F*** the poor and the areas of the hospital that they use. We the poor are not to be considered as the rich get all they need and then some.
If someone finds you lying in your own alcohol laced puke in a gutter and takes you to a somewhat shabby room in a hospital are you really going to complain? I would take reasonably priced care in a plain white room with a roommate over wood-floored designer-decorated uber-expensive single-room care any day and I do have insurance.
I can look at pretty walls when I get back home.
Of course this is the future of medicine. As Mama Bear so eloquently put it, the uninsured, who surely must be drunks, deserve whatever they get. Although I do believe Mama Bear might have forgotten that many jobs no longer offer benefits. And quite a few that actually do still, offer sub par insurance, leaving many working class Americans woefully under insured. A staggering amount of regular folks (you know, the guys that make 40k a year and pay the most in taxes) are going to get the shaft in our brave new world.
The hospitals in the ghetto are eventually just going to become the free clinic/ complicated nursing home care centers. The waits where I work are in the 4-7 hour range right now. Insured patients won't wait that long, because they don't have to. They'll go to a nicer ER that actually medical screens some of the b.s. or to an urgent care center because they can afford the copay. And since Medicare and Medicaid are now finding whatever reason they can to not reimburse for any of this shit? I have no idea how this is going to sustain itself. We'll be operating at a loss constantly if something doesn't change soon.
All are same to me when it comes to that end point.
hood nurse - you are exactly right. The fact is they aren't going to become that, they are that now.
I know about benefits and paid out of pocket for medical care for about 10 years until recently getting insurance again. What I was trying to say is that I would be happy to have a lower-cost perk-free option. Let the rich people pay for executive-chef-prepared hospital food, high-thread-count hospital sheets and gowns, and huge flat-screen TV's in their private hospital rooms.
I am just as happy eating the generic jello, drinking the mediocre coffee, sleeping on the standard-issue-sheets, having a roommate and paying that much less for a 'shabby' room. I am also fine with generic drugs, generic hand soap and tap water.
As long as the medical care is good, a fancy room with expensive perks are irrelevant to me.
@Mama Bear- I like your comment. I think most of the people do the same thing. And i also like this post very much. It's very interesting and reflecting the truth about rich patient and poor patient.
Wow this is so true. Thank god I work Cardiac.. my unit is absolutely beautiful! $50,000 phillips monitors in every room, thermometers in every room, and did I mention these rooms are private, large, and all beautiful views outside there windows. In this same hospital we have ghetto med surg floors that have 2 thermometers for the whole floor and ALL equipment is out dated.
The cardiology personal statement is an amazing article for medical students and for those who wants to specialized in cardiology.
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