Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
doctor carol paris is joining us to psychiatrists in private practice in
maryland also a member of physicians for national health program a doctor paris
it's great to talk to you
i think a good place to start will be
to get your sense of why you think a single-payer national health care
program would be would be a better thing than we have now but also i'd be curious
to hear why
some of your other colleagues other doctors aren't unanimous in that uh...
in that idea if it is if it is the beneficial as i believe you think it is
well thank you for having me on my show uh... yes i do think that
it is
beneficial and there's lots of statistics weekend talk about or not
uh...
to support why it is beneficial
for uh...
efficient and most importantly
uh... forward ninety five percent of uh... v
american in terms of just economically advantageous to them not to mention
getting them comprehensive coverage
why do i
so i think it's it's beneficial bumped from an economic
standpoint and and from other moral epochal
um...
you know healthcare is a human rights perspective but even if you in a few
doubt
approach it from that perspective
just from an economics yet
standpoint it is
superior
uh...
why do i think
other physicians uh... aren't on board but that
uh... well actually
fifty nine percent uh... positions that were start date back in two thousand
innate and brenda dot even before
the uh...
affordable care act
met unit two thousand nine legislation
fed said that they thought that i have unnatural help program would be superior
and that was up ten percent
from
five years earlier that was published in the annals of internal medicine
and
just if you look at the numbers of membership in positions for a national
health program
our membership increased by
three or four thousand positions in two thousand nine
simply because
so much more um...
awareness of the problems with our health care system
even though there was not a great deal of
public media away arnath of single-payer as
an option
so let's talk about that a little bit i mean i think
on this program we talk a lot from the patient point of view why a single-payer
system would would be better
but as as a practicing physician i'm curious what your thoughts would be
about why how would that allow you to provide
better care or would it would in effect how would it affect the income of the
average position and then go into that a little bit
i'd be glad to know
i got into this as i thought i joined d_n_a_ jpy in two thousand and i and
that was
after eyelids
for five years
with our state map the maryland state medical society
and i was a very active in the state medical society and i was quite proud of
the piece of legislation that
with
instrumental in getting past
that was designed to get the insurance companies on one particular issue said
and uh...
when it was off and on
when the regulations for recommend were written by the insurance company
there's no fine for violating olaf
and it was at that point that i don't think any repairs something
ralston
with insurance companies
no matter what we do they will find it
a workaround they will find a way to get around
any legislation that your path
and that's when i got involved in in positions for a national health program
and
started looking at
putting a dollar sign on
what that would mean may end my own practice
and one of the things that i came across was an article in health affairs
uh... suggest that the average
primary care possession
the cost to the average primary care physician it sixty eight thousand alarm
sixty eight thousand dollars a year
per possession
prairie here
at the cost of the only with multiple insurance companies
okay so this takes into consideration if i understand the average primary care
physician i don't know what numbers do using is a slate of about twenty five
hundred patients that they have uh... kind of on the roster
withstand to save sixty thousand dollars if that bureaucracy was eliminated
that is correct
okay now as far as as far as care is concerned
does it just follow that simply by not having to deal with that you're
providing better care well i think usually you have people working on the
billing side
so i don't know that that's the argument but how would it translate the better
care
actually the people that i have working on the billing side
are
medical uh...
actor
they could actually be doing blood pressures and weights and
actual thing that
would be good for my patients
rather than answering phones and chafing
prior authorizations
so from that perspective it would be good for the patients
i doubt if i'm getting them ready simply by not having to spend have so much
overhead go into
uh...
dealing with multiple insurance companies
then i might actually
be able to see a couple healer patients a day
and spend more time with the patient but i'm actually
definitely translates
insert better care i think if you ask the average patient
what they're feeling is about the amount of time that their positions spends with
them
i don't think you're often gunning here that that patients feel like they're
doctors spend as much time as he or she
uh... needed or at least from the first place into perspective
uh... at the patient feels
blue is necessary
i don't think that's because doctors don't like to spend time with patients
it's because
we're like youngsters in a cage unless we see
uh... while you most patients every day
we cannot
pay the bills they can't pay our staff
any money left over for any other com
so i'm not on the last end of this i guess my question would be about as far
as
and this is probably about
but issue that has multiple influences both the fear of lawsuits but also what
insurance companies will and won't cover which is that of
necessary or unnecessary tests that are often done we just did a piece a couple
of weeks ago
about by a number i think it's forty five different tests that agree with
doctors came together and said you know these are really overdone
we would actually eliminate a ton of spending
at the same time allot of the reason that those tests are being done is
because doctors both need to cover themselves and know that if they're not
done in documented future procedures may not be covered so talk a little bit
about out that the diagnoses
testing might change with the single-payer health care system
well anything that doctors
deal with so much of the testing because they're afraid of being sued right
and felt when you think about malpractice
uh... and you look at
when you break a malpractice award down
the majority of the money in any malpractice awards
or is to cover the patient for future medical care
well guess what that goes away
if we had a national health program because that's already
assure you get your medicare card to get your boarding in the lives of the day
you die
so necessarily
every now practice award it's going to be significantly reduced
if we had a national health program
which then translates into
smaller
premium for your malpractice insurance because
the payouts are not would be used to be
which again translates into more income for doctors anime
humor malpractice claims because the majority of the reason that people
personnel malpractice claim in the first place
it because they need to be assured of
continued care
and if they don't have to be a short of continued care benefits one of those
cases where u
it really wasn't malpractice but
but it's equivocal and
the patient not is is going to happen
expensive care for the rest of your life
act goes away with a national health program
okay i wish we had more time we've been speaking with doctor carol paris is a
psychiatrist in private practice in maryland also a member of physicians for
national health
popup program
really great to speak to you and we'd love to have you back again
thank you very much