The story of a neurologist who quit medicine and lives on a boat

I write this while sitting in our sailing catamaran, swaying in the wind and current eight feet above sand and sea grass.  I know this because I can see right through the water in the Bahamas.  There is clarity here. When I started this journey thirteen months ago, I was burning with anger.  I was angry at insurance companies for developing complex, mutable formularies, coverage policies, and appeal procedures, maximizing my burden to minimize their cost.  I was angry at pharmaceutical companies and the many layers of profit-seeking middlemen between them and my patients, their unregulated maneuvering resulting in arbitrary swings in drug pricing so that I was unable to tell my patients if they could afford even their generic seizure meds that month.  I was angry at the government, which shortsightedly addressed the morass of medical economics with more bureaucracy, and, with ICD-10, even defined more diseases.  I was angry at my physician leaders, who awkwardly wielded their newly-acquired economic jargon like a weapon, distancing themselves from the fellow doctors they supervised.  And finally, I was angry at multiple EMRs, which clearly placed the doctor’s time and effort last on the priority list. After all, medicine is complex these days.  The doctors must pay for this. Continue reading ... Your patients are rating you online: How to respond. Manage your online reputation: A social media guide. Find out how.
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Tags: Physician Neurology Source Type: blogs