Unionizing MD's (wasRe: Can we talk about who will certify our EMR/Health information technology?)

[Guest guest]

With all the talk about unionizing, I want

to remind everyone that you can only collectively bargain against your

employer.  So do you want to be your own employer?  Or do you want to be an

employee of all of the insurance companies?  This is why there is Kaiser

Permanente (the insurance) and The Permanente Medical Group (the doctors) are

separate entities.  In CA, only doctors can own medical practices.  However,

there is talk in Sacramento

of changing that law.  So, our county medical society is filing the appropriate

documents with the state of CA to create a union.  It’s just going to sit

there until the laws change, but then instead of the UFCW (or whatever) union

coming in and wooing doctors to unionize, there will be a union created by, for,

and run by & for doctors.

But for those of us who want to be our own

boss, where will that leave us?  Will we sell out to the big corporations so

that we can be part of the union and make more money?  Or will we remain

autonomous and take the risk that our reimbursement will be less than the doc

across the street because he/she “sold out” to the union?

Just some food for thought…

Pratt

Office Manager

Oak Tree Internal Medicine P.C

Roy Medical Associates, Inc.

From: [mailto: ] On Behalf Of Haresch

Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 6:55 PM

To:

Subject:

Re: Can we talk about who will certify our EMR/Health information technology?

So is it time for just this national organization to

be founded?

One open only to primary care, with the express purpose of advancing the

quality of care through the empowerment of doctors?

To hire the bloodthirstiest of lawyers to find the way to unionize or otherwise

gain clout in this system?

To give a laser focus to this issue rather than trying to cover all the bases that

AAFP/APA/ACP try to manage?

To stop worrying about the reactions of the specialists?

To charge payers some ungodly sum to " certify " them as having

policies and procedures and equipment that improve the quality of care?

One that has enough support to ensure that every payer has to listen?

One that could give a vision to those of us who don't see how we stay out of

foreclosure if we stop playing the insurance game?

What percentage would join for the same dues that we pay AAFP?

Haresch

>

> A few years ago I was so fuming mad and I was screaming the same ideas in

really long winded posts at the AC user board and one or two really good people

would chime in and lend me their moral support and sort of validate my feelings

and frustration but nothing really came of it... Then other things in

life got extremely hairy over the last year or two, especially the last year

and I just didn't have the time or the strength to ive to it although it

certainly speaks to the authentic me....

>

> Â Â Â But the teamsters, yes those Teamsters have started

to organize some of the docs here in the great CNY region... Unfortunately the

FTC has always struck down any sort of real Unionizing attempts with threats

and prosecution of violations of their totally distorted and messed up concept

of freetrade in this industry.... Oh but never forget, that the carriers were

granted an " anti-waiver/exemption " back around 1940 or so, so

they as to supposedly allow them better access to all the critical data that

they need to set the community rates... So we extra small mom and pop shops are

held hostage with the real threat of going to jail and being fined out of

business, while the extra large and powerful corporations that we must

" negotiate " with or better against can and certainly really do

collude as much as possible...

>

> Â Â Â I still don't see how anyone in their right mind can

considered this present situation a balanced and fair fight that needs the

present laws and regulations tightened and strongly applied as the FTC has done

all these years... I have attempted to stay on top of this because unions are

in my blood and heritage and I too believe as long as these blood suckers are

allowed to stay around, they will never go away and give in quietly, they are

just too used to gettin way to much money bleeding all of us dry... I also see

the problem as many specialists are way too laid back and selfish on all this

loving their over valued procedure codes and don't get a rat's behind about

starving, insane, over worked and under paid, toxic shocked primaries..

>

> IMHO, Â the real pressure is going to have to come from a much stronger

effort to round up every last primary, and get them all to quit the AMA so as

to hit them in the wallet because they hurt primaries with the 25-4

(may be only 24-5, but who's counting) loaded board that creates

the relative values that starve all primaries out, and take those funds and

efforts to be used and applied to a much more vibrate almost radical

organization that fights for the right to organize, have separate fee schedules

for primaries that recognize that cognitive skills and medicine is their valued

bread and butter... Now that would shake a few things and people loose... As

long as primaries are sheep lead to slaughter hiding behind the AMA who doesn't

even get it, and doesn't give two cents about them, no less organizations like

the AAFP and AAP who buy into the first bad idea like the over loaded,

misconcieved medical home, and only in the last few years got the idea

> of collective bargining, then nothing is going to change...

>

> Â Â Â But again this is what a union really is all about and

for... Work conditions, work hours, how much work for how much pay and other

compensation... All these issues about the toxic nature of your present

work place (execpt for some IMP's) are all a " labor-managment kind

of things to be properly hammered out across the collective bargining table...

But even the enviornment of the discussion would change because now there would

be the standard of " Bargining in Good Faith " as laid out in labor

law. And let me tell you presently there is not a thing that happens between

offices like ours and these mega SOB's that even has the faints hint of meeting

such a standard...

>

> Â Â Â So, let me know when the ship finally starts to sail

for I am all for it and I know a whole lot about basic organizing,

unionism and labor laws and I would love to be one of the people sitting

at those first few heated, now we've got some muscle and clout to attempt to

leverage back against you suckers, meetings.  But things are extra

rough and tough in our lives here right now and I do not have the time or

energy to spare standing alone on a soap box fighting windmills like the man of

lamancha... But goodness knows if something was to actually start to finally

catch on I'd love to play Meanie and Phil Oches all at the same time...

Thanks for listening to this old blue collar boy bitch...

>

>

> Â Â Â