AMNews reports in its April 21st edition that patients are generally pleased with their hospital care. In the following table, AMNews presents a sampling of what you can find at the government sponsored site to compare hospitals.
Now, for the first time, I present to you a Happy Hospitalist exclusive. The following represents the same response from thousands of physician.
| Dimension | Doctors who were "always" satisfied |
|---|---|
| Patients communicated well | 25% |
| Given information about home recovery | 25% |
| Nurses communicated well | 25% |
| Rooms and bathrooms were kept clean | 25% |
| Pain was well-controlled | 25% |
| Hospital staff was quick to help | 25% |
| Staff explained medicines before giving them | 25% |
| Room was quiet at night | 25% |
As a result of this exclusive survey, The Medicare National Bank has decided to cut physician payment 10.1% on July 1st, 2008, sighting a need to beat physicians into submission. Dr Dumass, Chief Operating Officer of the Medicare National Bank expressed shock and aw. "This is worse than any report I could have ever hoped for. We were gunning for 10% physician satisfaction across the board. To get 25%. Well, that's just not acceptable."
Dr Dumass went on to relay his thoughts on entitlement. "Physicians should have no right to satisfaction. Where do they come off thinking they can just consume satisfaction without regard for future generations? We will bury that hatchet. We will continue to suppress physician satisfaction until we break them. We have a goal of five percent cuts in physician satisfaction every year. Eventually we'd like them all just to quit. The master plan is to replace them all with Google, and a few licensed technicians from India."
It does seem as if Medicare and private insurance companies are perfectly happy with miserable physicians. If the government wants to increase the number of physicians, it certainly needs to do a better job of retaining them.
ReplyDeleteQuit yo bitchin' >:]
ReplyDelete"The master plan is to replace them all with Google, and a few licensed technicians from India."
ReplyDelete*snicker*
That'd be damn funny if it didn't ring so true....
lol
ReplyDeleteHeh. Well done.
ReplyDeleteYou know, my satisfaction as a nurse might increase if patients neither threw punches at me nor urinated on me.
ReplyDeleteHow come patients aren't asked if they're happy that I don't punch or pee on them?
/jo