Guys, please refer to the reply in today's Straits Times Forum
page for a response from a practising family doctor.
i'm not a doctor myself and of course i would love to pay as little
as possible and yet enjoy the benefits of excellent health care.
But do u think it will be fair for us to expect good medical
service when we don't even pay the docs enough to cover their
operating costs? As i've mentioned in my earlier posts, a decline
in medical service standards would be inevitable. We have to bear
in mind that the neighbourhood clinics aren't charitable
organizations.. the doctors have families to feed too. More
importantly, unlike polyclinics, GPs are not subsidized by the
govt.
As for how a min charge of $18 will ensure medical service
standards are kept.. well, i'm not sure how SMA came up with this
figure in the first place. But my guess is that this figure
was probably based on the average no. of patients that a GP sees
everyday, such that after deducting the operating costs, the doctor
will be able to bring home a decent salary. Hence with
this min. charge, the doctor will be able to do whatever he thinks
is best for the patient, afford to spend time with each patient
without having to worry about cutting costs to ensure that he still
brings home a reasonable salary.
Hence this $18 min charge acts to prevent unhealthy price
wars and cost-cutting among the GPs, and if any GP were to
compromise medical service standards even with this min. charge in
place, we can hold him fully accountable since he will no longer
have any reason to cut back on his services.
However, if we do not have this in place, a GP price war will
start, and service standards will drop. We then accuse the GP for
poor medical service, but will that be fair for the doc? He's only
trying to make sure that he brings home enough to send his kids to
school, and is doing this in response to what every other GP is
doing! We then legislate as someone suggested to ensure that
medical service standards are kept (and how is the legislation
going to be worded by the way.. medical service standards is such
an intangible entity that is affected by many other factors as
well) and voila! it will probably turn out that to ensure this, the
GP will have to charge at least $18... and we'll be back to square
1.
As for whether the $18 minimum charge will ensure quality
of medical care, my answer is that it doesn't. This min. charge
simply makes it inexcusable for doctors to cut costs at the expense
of the quality of health care. Whether or not a doctor is
a good one depends largely on his knowledge, experience and
character. I'm sorry to hear about your experience with the senior
consultant. I'm sure your dissatisfaction with his services was not
because he was trying to cut costs but because of his attitude, or
lack of efficacy in the treatment he prescribed right? That could
be due to the nature of your disease, or that he simply did not
have enough experience in treating your disease. Of course, such
intangible factors are beyond the control of even the SMA.
But what we are concerned here is that doctors will
sacrifice their professionalism if they are faced with dire
financial difficulties, as will probably occur if the minimum
charge of $18 is lifted and a price war ensues.(believe
me, GP practices are everywhere and are very competitive)
Personally, i would rather pay $18 and be assured that my doc is
doing his best and isn't cutting corners than to pay $8 for an
ineffective and thoroughly unsatisfying consultation.. and probably
having to visit the doc twice more for the same disease as i'm not
getting any better. What do u guys think?
