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Physician Offers a Perspective Doctor Says Insurance, Regulation Frustrating His Profession

Posted on: Thursday, 25 August 2005, 00:00 CDT

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..." said Dr. Barney Maynard, quoting the opening lines of Dickens' "Tale of Two Cities" Tuesday as he addressed the Rotary Club of Evansville.

"From this one physician's perspective, Dickens accurately defines our position in health here at the start of the 21st century," said Maynard, a partner and surgeon with Urological Associates Inc. in Evansville.

Advances and discoveries in the last several decades characterize health care's "best of times," he said, citing development of a wide variety of antibiotics, less-invasive surgical techniques and diagnostic imaging as well as greater understanding of immunology, disease at the molecular level, DNA and stem cells.

"But it's also the worst of times and an age of foolishness," Maynard said.

Physicians are frustrated, he said, pointing to a member survey conducted by the Indiana Medical Association that found one in three doctors practicing in the state is actively trying to retire immediately, seeking a position outside medical practice or hoping to leave health care all together.

"All physicians really want to do is take care of people, but so many of us no longer find joy in our work when the joy of patient care is swallowed up by burdens placed on us by regulation and the insurance entities," he said.

In the United States, 45 million citizens are without basic health care coverage, he said, and coverage costs are nearly impossible to manage. Patients, he said, expect doctors to make them perfect, regardless of their own destructive behaviors. In addition to expecting perfect health, he said, people have lost sight of the fact that dying is a part of life.

"We spend 50 percent of Medicare dollars on the last 30 days of life and 80 percent on the last six months of life," he said. "Unless we change our ways, the current conservative estimate of the unfunded financial liability of Medicare alone over the next 70 years is $66 trillion."

According to Maynard, ours is a society bankrupting its grandchildren. Business, labor, physicians and policy-makers need to join together to reform the health care system.

"From this physician's perspective, the great question in health care at the start of this new century is whether or not we have the courage and fortitude to deal with the problems that beset our health care system so that we can, in fact, enjoy the remarkable advances and promises before us."

Source: Evansville Courier & Press

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