Sunday, March 04, 2007

A primary care doc, writing in JAMA lists those things she won't miss as she makes plans to leave her practice:

No more forms to fill out for workers comp, diability, SSI, student loan forgiveness, long-term-care insurance coverage, FMLA, or temporary suspension of billing for credit card or mortgage or rental furniture payments owing to customer illness...

No more requests for a personally crafted letter swearing that 'Medically, it is in the patient's best interest...' to change apartments, own a pet, not swim in gym class, work only part-time, be excused from jury duty, change shifts, or not travel at this time...

No more writing a prescription for Winner med only to find out it is not on the patient's pharmacy plan. So I phone in SecondBest instead, but the formulary gods will only approve RunnerUp, but by golly I fight for SecondBest and win. Until the patient calls bbecause SecondBest is still a second-tier drug with a $50 co-pay. Could I please prescribe something cheaper, like that RunnerUp her beautician takes?


In case you wonder how I spend my office hours when not seeing patients.

3 comments:

Amanda said...

I enjoyed your blog very much

Anonymous said...

Can we post this in the office? It is great!!!!!!!!
Jean

Laurie said...

This post is the BEST! I love your sense of humor. When you retire, you can write professionally (as in "paid"). Given this post, thank goodness we have physicians like you and Adele who hang in there.