4/14/2024 0 Comments Dr susan you in santa monicaThis is one of the reasons Morris’ mother sometimes asks when she’s moving back home to Palo Alto. Next we called on a blind man in the Baldwin Hills district known as the Jungle, and young kids in bright red jackets eyeballed us as if we were undercover cops. “Sounds like a Cadillac with 20,000 miles on it.” Morris put a stethoscope to her chest and said: ![]() Jones, who often exclaims to Morris, “Lord Jesus, I need some doctoring,” was doing better this day. I accompanied Morris on a home visit to 104-year-old Etta Jones in Lafayette Square. “He said he couldn’t get a ride to the office, so I told him, ‘We’ll come to you,’ and that’s how it got started.” ![]() Morris met a man at a health fair who was so sick, she later called to check up on him. In the corporate lingo, they’ve learned you need high volume and low acuity, meaning lots of patients who aren’t on death’s door.īut if a patient can’t make it to the office, that’s not a problem. They’re closing in on 400 patients total, and Lee thinks they can turn a profit if they hit 1,000. Meanwhile, you try to bag a few more patients with decent insurance. If you’ve got 500 of them, for example, and 400 don’t visit the office in a given month, you’re still collecting their $12. The trick with those $12 reimbursements, Lee says, is to build a big enough pool of patients so you at least break even. “You’re at the IHOP, and they’re eating the pancakes with all the butter and the syrup and a side of bacon,” says Morris, “and you just make sure never to take their blood pressure after that.”īut even with all the hustle, how is this going to pencil out? They leave stacks of business cards wherever they go. They’ve been to a Sizzler, an IHOP, senior centers and churches in South Los Angeles to preach a healthy lifestyle and teach about diabetes and other chronic diseases. Neither one ever expected to leave fliers on doorsteps or star in a traveling medicine show. They’re improvising, doing things that aren’t taught in medical school. In addition to four days a week in the office, each doctor is working a second job to earn some real money.Īre they giving up the fight? No. Morris, who’s 40 and lives in Eagle Rock, and Lee, 33, of Windsor Hills, face the handicap of trying to run an honest business in an industry where no good deed goes unpunished.Īre they frustrated? Of course they are. Health care giants scamming the government like common thieves. Just open the paper, and what do you see? A patient dropping dead after being refused a referral. If you think the system is about keeping you healthy, you might want to consider a brain scan. The trouble is: Morris and Lee are the end of a long line of outstretched palms, starting with insurance companies, lawyers and health-care conglomerates. “We are the richest country that’s ever lived, and we’re the only developed country that does not provide universal access to health care, even though we pay more per capita for it than any other country.” “What these young physicians are facing is the pinnacle of all that’s wrong and failing with the system. “It’s tragic, but it’s not surprising,” says Linda Rosenstock, dean of the UCLA School of Public Health. The remainder have Medicare or a good HMO, but that’s not enough patients to offset the losses. In other words, nearly 90% of their patients are costing them money. ![]() Roughly 5% have no insurance at all and dig into their pockets for loose change. Medi-Cal, which is better, at around $30 a month.
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