I hope all of you in the DPC world are doing well and ready to enjoy some R&R at the DPC Summit this June. Please say a prayer for those stuck in the FFS or Hospital Employment world. Here’s what’s going on there:

From Beckers Hospital Review:

When the EHR went down at Mount Sinai recently things got…….better. Unneeded tests were removed. There was more human interaction with patients. “Our patient care on that day was the most patient-centered and most collaborative than ever in my 2 1⁄2 years of residency,” Dr. Mettler wrote. “It was an epic day.”

From the New Hampshire Bulletin:

Recent headlines announcing layoffs at one of the state’s major hospitals illustrate the pressures that hospital systems now confront. Nearly all the state’s Community Health Centers are losing money, with increased expenses outpacing flat revenue this year; nursing homes are struggling; and the state’s mental health and developmental service providers are reporting similar concerns.

From CNBC:

Cyberattack on UnitedHealth firm forces doctors to dig into personal savings to stay afloat.

Akey said the outages from the cyberattack reduced her practice’s cash flow by more than 80% for six weeks. As of early April, she said, she had amassed more than $130,000 worth of insurance claims that she had not been able to get reimbursed for. 

Making payroll quickly became a major concern, and Akey said she stopped paying her own salary to help support her staff. Her bank offered her a loan to keep her practice afloat, but it came with an 11% interest rate. Akey said she felt it was too high. 

She turned to her patients for help, asking for voluntary $45 advances that would be repaid.

“I’ve had patients for like a quarter century, so a lot of them have been like, ‘No, no, I need to give you more.’ So there’s $100 checks, $200 checks, $500 checks, $2,000 checks,” Akey said. “They have had 0% responsibility for this situation, and they’re fronting the money to keep us going.”

So, let’s summarize these. EHRs are not built for patient care and human interaction is important. Community health centers in NH (and probably in every state) can’t serve the community if it is bankrupt. And relying on third parties (insurance companies) to pay you makes you beholden to them and there is nothing you can do about it other than beg your patients for money.

This was only a smattering of the stories describing the massive sh%t show of our healthcare system. Do you know who DOESN’T have these problems? Direct Primary Care.

See you in Dallas.