Can Doctors fire their patients?
According to Doc Gurley, an Internist, doctors may opt to quit some of their patients under a pay-for-performance scheme. This happen to me for reasons other than not doing what my doctor told me I needed to do to keep myself healthy. My doctor fired me as a patient because he said he was returning to do research at UCSF Medical school. When he told me the this I was depressed. I felt like I had developed and was developing a good patient-doctor relationship with him. I had to start all over with another primary care physician. Having a primary care physician is a very big deal to me because I think I have a slight case of iatrophobia.
Today I have a primary care physician and I would hate to think he could fire me under this scheme.
Today I have a primary care physician and I would hate to think he could fire me under this scheme.
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It's a phony issue in my view, concocted for political reasons to block meaningful healthcare reform efforts. Doctors have always been able to discharge patients with adequate notice and precautions to protect the patient's welfare against a lapse of needed care. This has happened rarely, simply because there is only rarely a need for it. The notion that it would become frequent under performance-based medicine lacks credibility, but in any case, if Dr. Gurley is worried about it, he should insist that any new practice arrangements include a provision that considers unnecessary or excessive patient discharges to be evidence for poor performance.
July 9, 2009 8:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did you Doc Gurley's blog?
July 9, 2009 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes
July 9, 2009 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I should add that I read the article, but didn't notice the photo. I shouldn't have called her a "he". I also have the impression she didn't take the alleged problem too seriously, but wanted to get some reader reactions. After all, she is a blogger.
July 9, 2009 9:26 PM | Reply | Permalink