The Sick Business of Medicine

Attached a link http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/11/12/2499995/finances-strain-the-marriage-between.html to an interesting article by John Dorschner published in the Miami Herald titled "Finances strain the marriage between Jackson and the University of Miami" which details the increasingly strained relationship between Jackson Memorial Hospital and the University of Miami. At the center of the dispute are insured patients seeking medical care at Jackson Memorial hospital. UM critics claim that UM physician direct these patients to the UM hospital across the street, and that Jackson Memorial hospital is left with treating the uninsured patients. Miami-Dade taxpayers pay Jackson Memorial $330 million a year to treat uninsured people who seek treatment in the county-owned Jackson system. As part of the system that has evolved over the years, Jackson also pays UM when its doctors treat the uninsured at Jackson. UM critics also claim that once an uninsured patient gets insurance UM doctors are shifting their care to the UM hospital, which then receives the Medicare reimbursement money. UM calls that patient choice. Jackson counters that its paying patients shouldn’t be siphoned off to UM facilities. What troubles me is that patients are being considered as milkable cash cows and once they are loosing their production value they are being pushed back into Jackson Memorial Hospital. Its a sick system which encourages overutilization of medical services and drives up healthcare costs even further. Yours Bernd