Physician Driven Health Care System

After thirty years as a family practitioner, I have yet to comprehend what is meant when the word "system" for U.S. health care is used. It seems like a hodge-podge of government, HMO and PPO entities that has no cohesiveness. One option that our country does not have is to continue on this same course. If we desire to include more people with health care coverage, stabilize Medicare and Medicaid, and make health care affordable to individuals and employers, we need to look at things differently. The main underlying problem is that health care costs too much.

Why does it cost so much?

Although some fees and prices are excessive, the cost that is more important is generated from physicians' decisions to order tests, medications, procedures, and hospitalizations. It is said that the ball point pen is the most expensive medical instrument in existence because this is what we use to write orders with. In the medical world, the pen is "mightier than the dollar." Prior to this time, government and insurance industries have tried to cut costs by cutting prices, but not by changing the way physicians write their orders. About twenty percent of the health care dollar goes to physicians for their fees. These fees are used for not only their pay, but also office staffs, rent, equipment and supplies. However, the other eighty percent of health care costs is driven by the decisions that doctors make with their ball point pens.

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