A general rule of thumb for a practicing physicians is that if you leave one to their own devices, and allow them to use their clinical experience to make the best decision for the patient, they will usually do so.
Take from them autonomy and time spent with the patient, and it will come at the expense of quality of care.
You can be the best physician in the world, but with only a handful of minutes to see a patient you are doing a worse job than you would if you had more time with them.
While standard of care can be reached in short visits, that is literally all you can do. There is no time for patient education, or heaven forbid a patient has more than 1 problem. There are many intangibles that get missed and they add up to lead to a lower quality of care.
Take from physicians autonomy and time spent with the patient, and it will come at the expense of quality of care. Click To Tweet
Those that like to commoditize physicians and their patients don’t see things that way. They look at the world in terms of numbers and spreadsheets.
This will inevitably lead to commoditization of both patients and physicians as reducing people to numbers leads to abstraction and the loss of the human element.
Productivity, coding, and billing become of paramount importance, while patient care goes way down the list.
Those that like to commoditize physicians and their patients don't see things that way. They look at the world in terms of numbers and spreadsheets. Click To Tweet
As physicians, when we allow ourselves to be commoditized, this will happen time and time again.
No one cares more about your patients than you and your team of providers that actually have contact with the patient.
Actual contact turns numbers back into people again.
It doesn’t matter who the overlord happens to be; hospital systems, large insurance groups, private equity. Allow them to control your practice and you will be commoditized and unhappy.
