I was sitting at my doctor's office yesterday, waiting in the exam room, when he had to excuse himself and take a phone call.
He stepped outside the exam room, but I could still clearly hear the conversation. All I could hear was one side of the conversation, but you'll get the idea. Fortunately, he had already taken my blood pressure, or it might have been excessively high.
the gist of the conversation was that my doctor had sent a patient to the hospital, a 90 year old terminal patient, to the hospice care section. Apparently there were no hospice beds available when she arrived, so they put her in another bed until one opened up.
While she was awaiting her hospice bed... she was visited by an attending physician to determine her course of care (even though my doctor had already sent complete instruction), another doctor was brought in, then a physical therapist (the woman was practically comatose), and a nutritionist (she was not eating... the feeding tube had been removed).
Now that sounds like extraordinary care, until you realize that each time one of these medical professionals had any contact with her, they billed the family. And of course that means medicare. My doctor was complaining that none of these visits should have been made, none of them were mandated by hospital procedure, and none of them should be billed. They were all unnecessary procedures, unnecessary expenses, and none of them benefitted the patient.
My doctor suggested that the hospital had simply identified an opportunity to tag on some additional expenses to a patients medical care, that likely would never be noticed. And except for the fact that my doctor is an exemplary human being, they would have been right.
That really chaps my hide. Ohh... maybe I should go to the doctor and have that checked out!?
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