Paul, I do feel your pain. It seems that the insurance companies are able to strategize en masse, while physicians are only able to stage guerilla assaults at the periphery.

Our physician organizations seem feckless and ineffectual at negotiating a better economic environment for us. One suspects that the higher-ups at the AMA and AAFP pay lip service to our concerns while they gaze wistfully at a Canadian-style nationalized health care system.

As a geographically isolated and "powerless" country doctor, my thoughts have been geared more toward opting out, rather than speaking out:

http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20070600/19brea.html

http://www.memag.com/memag/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=108870&searchString=cash%20service

What would happen if doctors just stopped taking money from third-party payors (as in the above articles)? Let the rich folks pay their concierge services! Let the poor folks go to the cash-only clinics! Let the insurance companies shrivel up on the vine. Let the bigwigs at the AAFP and the AMA go jump in the lake.

(Through fantasizing now)

Brian

P.S. - Leslie needs to post some pics of his donkeys!!

BC

Brian Cotner, M.D.
Family Practice