Introduction to September Issue Features
To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, "An enlightened physician community is indispensable to the proper functioning of a healthcare system." With that in mind, we would like to begin educating San Diego County's physician community by informing you of the issues that directly affect your patients and your practices, as well as our overall healthcare system ... and by describing how the San Diego County Medical Society (SDCMS) and the California Medical Association (CMA) affect these same issues as they get played out by politicians, lawyers, corporations, and others throughout the year, and - more often than not - year after year.
Although students finish medical school having studied a myriad of subjects in preparation for becoming a physician - organ physiology, human anatomy, histology, cell biology, biochemistry, basic neurology, etc. - they are more and more beginning their medical practices wholly unprepared for the realities of a healthcare system on the brink of collapse due to ongoing Medicare cuts, underfunded government programs, scope of practice threats to patient safety, Byzantine health plan contracts, HIPAA requirements, increasing professional liability insurance premiums, mandatory CME, government agency over-regulation, and much, much more.
This is where the San Diego County Medical Society (SDCMS) and the California Medical Association (CMA) step in. We are approximately 2,500 physicians in San Diego County and 25,000 physicians across California who have chosen, by becoming members, NOT to stand idly by while our colleagues, our patients, our communities, and our very own practices suffer under the weight of a system in such need of repair. Thank you to those physicians who have stepped forward to take back control of their practices and the care of their patients by becoming SDCMS and CMA members ... and by becoming informed, and educated!
[Note: Look to future issues of San Diego Physician for detailed descriptions of other issues important to physicians, beginning in October with a look at what the Department of Managed Health Care calls "balance billing," but what we prefer to call "billing for services rendered."]