How did medicine transform from a charitable profession to one that has put one in five Americans into collections for medical debt? How is it that hospitals are scientifically advanced centers of academic genius, but can’t even tell you what anything will cost? And how did the noble profession of healing lose control of its billing processes, allowing some hospitals to sue and garnish the wages of thousands of the people in the small town they serve? (emphasis added)
The growing money games of healthcare today are threatening the public trust in the medical profession. I’m reminded of that public trust every day I walk through the historic front door of my hospital, where all who enter are greeted by a 9-foot statue of Jesus standing with arms wide open, and the words, “Come to me all ye who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” engraved at His feet.
American hospitals were built with a mission to be a safe haven for the sick and injured. Most of these hospitals were sustained by charity and committed to great values of equality. In 1873, […]
I know exactly what you mean, Stephan. Our hospital has been taken over by the monopolistic UPMC (University of Pittsburg Medical Center) and all the doctors who want to take their patients there must become part of the monopoly and have UPMC in front of their names and the doctors get paid by UPMC. Our doctors used to be able to give us discounts because we are relatively poor and have trouble paying the overinflated prices of the UPMC monopoly. It would have been illegal back in the sixties and before, but now it is a widely used process of many companies: they move into a city and just take over a hospital (usually the only hospital in that city). The CEO of UPMC makes millions of dollars per year for his administrative duties. It is definitely a illness-profit system, not a health-care system and I have told them so. We are still paying for my wife’s last hospital stay which was highly overpriced, and the service was inadequate. If I was not in the intensive-care portion of the hospital the night before she was to be released, she would have died. She had fluid building up in her lungs and the nurses paid no attention to her at all, even when we buzzed the nurses. I had to run out and shout at the nurses to get them to pay attention to us.
P.S. I’m sorry, I made a mistake in the above report on UPMC. My wife was out of ICU and in the area where they put you before they release you the next day. That was where I yelled at the nurses and they put her back into ICU and got her Cardiologist who was able to save her. I was very upset when I wrote the piece because I will never forget it, because the nurses were supposed to be checking on her constantly and were not.