US Health Care, Lessons Learned.

In June of 2001 I graduated medical school almost a quarter of a million dollars in debt. With my education in mind and ideals in heart I headed out to complete residency. After residency I opened up my own practice in a small town (about three thousand people) with two ideals in my heart; 1. if I take care of the community, the community will take care of me 2. As a medical professional I am a resource to the community and as such, belong to it.I opened my practice on a shoe string budget (150K) and provided care to all people, bad insurance, no insurance, anyone who walked through my door. I scheduled patients such that I had time to truly address their problems (my dad always taught me that if you are going to do something you should do it right). Two years later I could only afford to pay myself $143/wk, none of my self pay patients were keeping up on their bargain to make regular payments (as low as $10/mo), the insurance companies administrative requirements were costing me more every month, and my liability insurance went up to $22,000 in the third year. Lesson 1, you cannot practice primary care with true integrity in the current atmosphere, you must either turn patients away or schedule so many that your quality of care becomes questionable (even to you). Lesson 2, my integrity is not more important than my family. I am not the only one who struggled I watched my family struggle because I tried to do what is right. I wrote my book with the belief that the only reason people would let this happen is that they don't understand how it works, I have yet to find a publisher for this unfortunate piece. I don't want to be rich, I don't want to be famous, I just want my faith in human nature and our brotherhood to be renewed by a population that won't let profit driven medicine neglect its members.