Too bad the writer didn't address the true reasons why this is not
Posted By: Cmsg on 2006-07-10
In Reply to: Interesting article on this topic - sm
an attractive field to enter.
Who in their right mind would spend time and money training in a dying profession? Can you say EMR, ASR?
Who in their right mind would spend time and money to train for a job which conceiveably could end up paying minimum wages, few benefits, little reward?
How many have spent time and money training only to find there are few companies who will hire newbies, few companies who offer flexible work schedules, few companies who work with you to make a living wage rather than to throw you into a pool of accounts guaranteed to keep your wages low?
How many expert MTs have left the profession due to reasons above?
CEOs need to wake up and take care of the excellent MTs they can manage to retain; quit messing with our paychecks with creative line counting, quit throwing multiple accounts at us and then expect 1000s of lines a day, quit basing our health insurance on production rather than hours worked; quit expecting us to be happy to work outside our scheduled hours because you provided no work within our scheduled hours with your too tight TATs, and on and on.
How often do I recommend this profession to young people? Never.
Complete Discussion Below:  marks the location of current message within thread
The messages you are viewing
are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select
the boards given in left menu
Other related messages found in our database
Well that's not true! Plenty of reasons
to check other reports! Maybe you are typing a DS and you can't understand a drug. You suspect it will be listed on the H&P, so you check there. Not there? Check the consult report. Or say you are doing an OP report and the dictator is slurring. You suspect this means he always says the same thing, so you look at some of his other OP reports for a similar report. Sure enough, you find a report with the same wording, so now you can make a normal. No HIPAA violation for doing research.
OK - how's that? I need to be healthy for ME (for several reasons) before I can be true to...
anything else in my life! Thank you ALL for the words of encouragement! It does help. I need to do this for ME. Once I see I can accomplish this goal I will have the encouragement, strength and faith that I can do anything! And you know what, I really BELIEVE I will do it this time! Thanks again! Will keep you updated!
Give professional reasons why you deserve it, not personal reasons
x
I stayed for many reasons and while those reasons have changed - sm
I loved MT because I was good at it and it came naturally to me. Typing, language, etc. The perks of working from home and being able to raise my family were a huge plus. I stayed because in the hayday of MT you could make really good money really fast (2500 lpd @ $0.15 cpl).
I stayed while my children were young and I could be available for them. I stayed so I could return to school and have that flexible schedule to juggle everything once the kids grew older. I stayed full-time and cut school back to half time so I could take care of my ailing parents and inlaws when the time arose.
I continue to stay because I still need to finish school (3 semesters to go) and unfortunately my DH is ill and needs someone to care for him now. I stay because it is convenient, but I do not plan to stay forever.
I sure miss the big money days, but what money I make now is sufficient enough to pay my bills. It is a means to an end so to speak and it has been a godsend along the way. But I in no way plan to stay at it forever. It served and continues to serve a purpose, but it is no longer what I "love" to do.
I think you'd be a great writer. (U already are.) - nm
x
I'm a steno writer
I went to school to learn how to use a steno machine, like in court, to "type" my medical reports. I have been doing this since 2000. I trained at 225 words per minute back in the day, so now I have a reservoir of speed to draw from when dictation speeds up. I rarely need to lift my foot off the pedal with steno.
I think steno is the fastest way to produce a report, but now that MQ is forcing us to do ASR work, I am not using my machine as much. To me, this is unacceptable since they only pay 70% of our base line rate for ASR. I have hung in there so far, but I'm fast approaching the need to get out of MQ since I used to produce 2000 lines a day easily with steno, way less now on ASR reports.
They say ASR is 30% faster than non-ASR thus they justify knocking off 30% of our base rate. Not true. ASR has slowed me way down, can barely make the minimum each day. Last I heard, they will not take us off ASR if we request it. I'm getting madder by the week and losing tons of money in the process.
lanier voice writer
Does anyone know of any companies that still use these? I am a die hard Lanier fan! Thanks.
She is a great writer. I read
In the Meantime, by that author, she used to be on Oprah a long time ago. Thanks for the poem, enjoyed it, especially the last line.
lanier voice writer
 HELP! I'm going crazy. All of a sudden my foot pedal went down on this unit - I have opened it and replugged a million times to no avail. Any solutions or suggestions/ Thanks!
Writer and PT marketing consultant
z
Meant professional writer. Know what HIM is. Sorry. nm
X
Lanier Voice Writer 1000
Client uses phone in Lanier Voice Writer 1000 with MTs coming into the office to transcribe. What is necessary to hire at home transcriptionists with this system? Are there tapes involved, will a c-phone work or can you not hire at home transcriptionists with this system? Thank you for any help you may have.
What do you need a Master's Degree in to be a science writer?
?
For all the fans, very interesting insight from the writer of the show.
Shonda Rhimes long take on part two:
From Shonda: It's the end of the episode (as we know it)
Original Airdate: 2-12-06
So Dylan’s dead.
And I have to admit, I’m a teeny bit relieved.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Kyle Chandler. He was great as Dylan. Smart, funny, cute, and very much in charge. I was, in fact, a little bit in love with Dylan. Not as in love as I am with McDreamy or Burke but…you know, there were moments during the filming of the episodes when Dylan would be saying something bossy or helping Mer down the hall, pushing that gurney and being all bomb squad-y, moments that I was thinking, hey, maybe he doesn’t have to explode.
But still I am relieved. Why? Well, I’m glad you asked. Here’s why:
At the end of Act Five, there is a scene. Scene 52. I wrote this scene about fifteen minutes before I had to print out the script and hand it over to production. It reads as follows:
INT. OR CORRIDOR -- CONTINUOUS
Meredith leans her head out. Sees Dylan heading down the hall. She's just about to open her mouth...
...When the ammo explodes. When Dylan explodes. Fire, shattering glass. Meredith is thrown backwards.
Okay, that’s…what? An eighth of a page? A sixteenth of a page? A tiny fraction of the script, right?
The ammo explodes.
Dylan explodes.
I wrote those words and was actually ignorant enough of the horrors to come that I gave it to the production team and then slept the sleep of babies and angels for several nights in a row.
The ammo explodes.
Dylan explodes.
Seriously? SERIOUSLY?
All of the sudden, you find yourself in meetings with real live bomb squad guys and special effects guys and a very tense director and everyone is asking you things like “When you say, bloody rain…you actually want bloody rain or just like, some blood spatter?” And things like “When Dylan explodes, you wanna see chunks of Dylan or do you want like, a Dylan vapor?”
These are thing I don’t want to think about. These are things that make my head hurt. The ammo explodes. Dylan explodes. It’s in the script. I wrote it. I know that. But I don’t want to think about Dylan chunks or bloody rain. I don’t want to think about it at all. I like to write things and have them happen. I like to keep myself in a kind of stalker-ish fog in which I believe my characters aren’t characters but actual people. It’s how I can write them. So when you ask me about Dylan chunks, my brain gets all twisty and shuts down. Because Dylan’s a person, a very real person to me and I love him and it’s not my fault he has to die and besides…yuck.
But I’ve got Rob Corn on my ass.
Rob Corn doesn’t care if I try to kick everyone out of my office when they bring up bloody rain or he doesn’t care if I try to pretend I can’t speak English when someone asks me about bloody chunks. Rob Corn is the producer on our show and it’s his job to make things happen and, if I am stupid enough to write Dylan explodes on a piece of paper, Rob Corn is damn well going to make sure that Dylan explodes. Behind his back, I like to call Rob Corn Bossy McBossy. It doesn’t sound affectionate here but in real life, it’s really sweet and kind. Trust me. Anyway, Bossy McBossy told me that we had to do tests so we could figure out how exactly Dylan explodes.
Tests? Dylan explodes. What’s there to test? HA! I’m clearly an idiot.
They built this model of Dylan’s body and one day I am herded out onto the back lot of the studio at the request of Bossy McBossy Rob Corn. Then I have to stand and watch as 20 or 30 really happy guys (testosterone is a powerful thing) position the model of Dylan just right and explode it into tiny little pieces. Twice. It is very loud. Wow. Dylan explodes. I’m all, “great, thanks, way to go, very manly.” And I turn to flee, prepared to head back to my office, happy that the Dylan explodes part of this is over so I can pay attention to the other stuff, the estrogen stuff, the fun stuff like Bailey and George giving birth and Derek describing that kiss to Meredith…
…But Rob Corn raises an eyebrow and very gently says, “Uh, Shonda?” and I go really still with horror. Because I suddenly start to realize that a) that little test was only the beginning and b) that, for the rest of my life, I was going to regret ever typing the words Dylan explodes into my computer.
They blew up test dummies. Tall dummies, dusty dummies, dummies with helmets, dummies without helmets. They blew up test dummies filled with fake blood. They blew up pieces of our set. They set off an explosion on the set of our operating rooms. They used stunt girls and stunt guys. Ellen let them pull her through the air. I think there were blue screens and green screens and animated pieces of debris and glass. The genius special effects guys added fire and smoke and things I can’t imagine but things that made it amazing. The sound guys added over 100 layers of sound elements so that, if you have HD and you watch with surround sound speakers, the explosion flies at you and passes you and swirls around you.
Dylan explodes.
The explosion was beautiful. Amazing work and truly impressive. I told everyone so. I can’t believe the amount of talent and energy that come together to make this show happen. But next time I get a Super Bowl and post-Super Bowl time slot, I’m gonna write something different. Something a bit easier. Something less time-consuming and expensive. And without so many bloody chunks.
Dylan puts the ammo down and goes to have a sandwich.
Enough about Dylan, may he rest in peace. I want to tell you about the difference between the first episode titled “It’s the End of the World” and the second episode “(As We Know It)”.
I tried really hard to make the first episode very male and the second episode very female. I wanted them to fit together, like puzzle pieces. So that I could have two episodes about the same thing but that felt very different from one another. The first episode is all amped up energy, all naked girls and screaming and bombs and running down hallways and men saying things like “Get out of my OR.” The second episode is all long pauses. Long pauses and sitting and pushing out babies and kissing in linen closets and lots of discussion about how the hell this is all going to end. The first episode is what happens when danger strikes. The second episode is how we deal with danger when it strikes. The epicenter of this episode is the hallway/gurney scene. It’s the first scene I envisioned at all when thinking of these two episodes. I kept saying, “there needs to be this scene where Meredith and Cristina move down the hall really slowly with the ammo and Dylan and talk about boys.” And everyone kept nodding very politely with tight smiles the way they do when they are sure you have gone off the deep end. But Elizabeth Klaviter (she’s our super smart medical researcher) got on the phone with the bomb squad guys and the doctors and she got them to tell her how this would be possible. How I could get that gurney rolling so Meredith and Cristina could discuss the state of Cristina’s relationship. I needed that discussion which, for me, is really just a big old metaphor for how we deal with the tragedies in life. You’ve got your hand on a bomb but you don’t want to talk about it over and over, you don’t want to face it – so you talk about something else. Most of life is talking about something else. Plus, I found this really cool song by The Greenskeepers that I was dying to use.
George is a big key to this episode. If you pay attention, he’s the one who serves as our witness. Through most of the episode, he wanders around, a bit bewildered. He’s the one who feels the most helpless. And then he has that moment with Hannah where she talks about the nature of cowardice, where she says that to do nothing is to be a coward. And he acts. He helps Bailey through giving birth. In the first episode, he’s fantasizing about what it would be like to see three women in the shower. In the second episode, he sees what three women in a shower is like in reality. Because, guys, women don’t just climb in a shower and start soaping each other up for no reason. Hello!? Life isn’t porn. Life is Meredith, bloody and battered, being gently cleaned off (chunks of Dylan) by her best friends. And so he leaves. Because what he is seeing is too intimate.
The last thing I want to say about this episode has to do with Meredith. Because all she really wants is some kind of reason to live. I’ve heard a lot of talk about Meredith being whiny but the truth is, she’s got a mom with Alzheimer’s, no other family to speak of, and the man she loves is married. She’s pretty freaking lonely, people. She’s got a right to get her whine on. So, when she falters, when she doesn’t want to pull her hand out of Mr. Carlson, it’s partly because she’s got nothing to hang on to. As she says in the first episode, she needs a reason to go on, she needs some hope. Which is why she has to picture Derek to get through it. And at the end, when he shows up at her house (and he shows up just to see for himself that she is alive), she has to ask. She has to ask him about their last kiss because if she’s ever going to get out of that bed again and keep going, she needs a reason. She needs to know there’s someone out there for her. She needs some hope. And Derek (can Patrick Dempsey be any more amazing?) describes that last kiss, the last kiss they had as a happy couple, in such perfect detail that Meredith knows she’ll be okay. Because he wouldn’t remember that kiss so well if he didn’t love her. He couldnt. Its her sign.
He loves her. Even if he can’t be with her. Even if he has a wife.
He loves her, people.
I told you, there’s hope.
I can’t promise you anything because, like I said earlier, the characters are alive for me and thus, I can’t make them do anything against their will. But my fingers and toes are crossed for the Mer/Der love…
Once again, thanks for watching the show.
Anything by Elie Wiesel...he is an amazing person/writer..nm
nm
I'll write it..I am a professional freelance writer as well as an MT
Let the ideas roll!
digital phoneline with Lanier voice writer
I recently had my unlimited long distance suspended because of the time I was putting in on the lanier voice writer. I as going to switch to digital through the cable company with a data line added for access to dial tone. Does anyone have any suggestions good or bad on the digital phone line used with the LAnier voicewriter. Please let me know.
Thank, Lisa
I just sent it to 60 Minutes staff writer - You guys help me- please read
Who ever mentioned sending it to Lou Dobbs, Dateline, or anybody else, please send this along yourself and name who you sent it to here on this site, so it is not duplicated to the same person too much. Girls, I don't want any credit for this - I just want someone to look into this who has access to any credible sources and figures. What ever it takes to get this out there - please help me do it. We are talking about 30 MILLION jobs and counting. I have already sent it on whitehouse.gov and to 2 newspapers. Copy the thing. Spread it around as much as you can and encourage others to do the same.
Sitcom & screenplay writer/philanthropist. - no message
:)
Thank you ghost! So true! So true! More than one person!
xx
Well of course we know that now. Back then we didn't because he didn't allow unfettered access.
c
right we children didn't tattle to the administrator did we. BTW, didn't you think we were &#
because some half-witted idiot said everyone was jealous because some other anonymous poster said they were going to be a doctor. Didn't they call it doctor envy. Oh yeah, that was all about you wasn't it busy-body MT. You with your degree and premed but yet you still post here and acuse others of jealously. I dunno but you and dano seem so close, I can't put my finger on it but I would say you could be computer clones. Jealous indeed. Children indeed. I think you are blowing your covers) dano and busy body MT. This whole "jealously" thing makes me think that you may be one and the same poster.
I didn't go into labor until 2.5 weeks later, so it didn't work. Sorry!...nm
x
Yer crackin' me up! True, true, true! nm
x
just try to help him be sure its for the right reasons
You have to let kids this age make some decisions, even wrong ones, and live with the consequences. But i would just try to get the dialog going, find out why it isn't 'fun'...personally, i feel if the desire is gone -- he won't play well anyway. Ultimately, his is one decision i'd let him have.
Many many many reasons
Too many to type...just believe me...
My 2 reasons...
I love my husband because: 
1. He's thougtful...calls or emails me several times a day.
2. After almost 20 years together, he still gives me chills when he walks in the door after work.
There are so many more reasons why, but you said 2...
my reasons
1. He knows me better than anyone else on the planet after knowing me for 27 years and being married for 23 and SILL loves and accepts me! :-)
2. I always feel that "everything will work out" if he tells me so.
there are many reasons - sm
I know of two hospitals that had decided to completely outsource their transcription to a well known large national service. Their reason was that they could not find transcriptionists in their area. Two years later, both hospitals let the service go and decided to go back with in house transcription. There were many reasons behind that decision.
I have a friend that works at a hospital in the midwest and says that the outsource service is costing the hospital more than if they had kept their staff. She had said that her hospital is in the process of hiring people to come back to work either at the hospital or, hopefully, at home.
The hospital I worked at could not find transcriptionists in the area, so they decided to outsource as well. Our boss didn't make it a secret that the service was charging them $45,000 MONTH. That was more than if our whole staff was working 10 hours of overtime a week/per transcriptionist. So our boss is looking into hiring transcriptionists that live within a 2 hour driving radius to work from home after a week of training in our hospital and paying for them to stay in a hotel.
Sometimes it is not cost effective to outsource. Sometimes the service is really bad and the hospital does not want to continue to pay for the errors. There could be other reasons, but those are ones that I can think of off the top of my head.
Which, among other reasons, is why I would -
;)
My reasons...
Well, Pattie, I have been doing this for 25 years. I am 50 years old. I am good at it. I want to work at home. I am reluctant to leave my chosen field at this stage in my life.
I could not have predicted, when I obtained my MT training, that this field would take such a nosedive in pay. Obviously I would have chosen another field had I known.
As you get older, you are more reluctant to train in a new field.
My reasons...
for stick with MT and even coming back after a couple of absences:
1. I love the work. It satisfies my need to be in the medical field (quit nursing school way back when - bonehead move on my part!) without having to go back to school or actually deal with people too much.
2. My husband is disabled and my boys are teenagers. If I worked outside the home in another field, I'd be spending everything I made on paying someone to take care of things at home.
3. I really like the company I'm with. Been with 'em now for about 4 years and have loved nearly every minute of it.
4. I'm too old (44) and set in my ways to retrain in a new field and get used to dealing with office politics again.
5. The money that maybe I'm NOT making, I'm also not spending on gas, clothes, lunches, etc. that are part of working outside the home.
6. Did I already say I love the field? 
Well, 2 reasons. 3 really.
1) That seemed to be what everyone was hiring for.
2) I hoped to make more money that way.
3) After being an MT for 14+ years, I had a lot of confidence in my abilities as a transcriptionist. Honestly, I didn't realize how much I didn't know. I feel like a dang newb again 
Several reasons ... sm
1) May be checking to see if you have previous employment history with them under different name.
2) May be doing some type of credit/background check.
reasons
You know I will definitely pass these along. Some people just think you are being racist because you state the obvious and because you show such bitterness towards these people. Look at what they cost our country. Do you know how much crime these people bring here? The diseases? Do some research. They don't have proper vaccines over there. I mean think about it these are poor 3rd word people from an uncililized culture apparently. How can 3rd world culture merge into 1st world culture smoothly. It can't and it won't. They will never smoothly transition to the American culture because they do not want to.
And people can say well what about all the European immigrants many years ago? Well guess what? They wanted to be American so bad that they learned the English language and worked hard. They wanted to be AMERICAN. They did not expect Americans to transition for them they were willing to transition to our culture. These uncivilized vultures basically come here and they come here for one reason only: money and all they can get for nothing. They come here to work but they also abuse our social services to the utmost degree. I have seen on news programs where they will come over here and fly their Mexican flags. And you know how they fly the American flag? Upside down. Oh yes I have seen it on TV. I have seen them trying to burn the American flag. I don't care if it cost a trillion dollars this country needs to send every one of these people back to Mexico. Our country would be a whole lot better for it. We don't need this filth and crime in our nation. We are better than that. I am sorry if this offends some poeple but it is so true and sometimes the truth just hurts. That is what is wrong with our country today. Poeple tiptoe around the truth. Lets dont offend anyone! Well hey I say state the obvious. Tell it like it is.
Reasons
I answered your question above where you posted it as well. I must have misunderstood your post, as it seemed that you were challenging me. But, I was just trying to say that I don't want to debate the fact as to whether or not the queue is shuffled, cause I see it happen. I don't know their reasons, but this new shuffling maneuver only happens on one account that I work on there, and it just began about 5 weeks ago. It is really difficult for me to get a decent line count now, as all of the reports that I get are laborious since the reports that I find to be easiest are always being shuffled to the bottom of the pool. I understand that it is not a prison and that my only option is to get out the kitchen if I can't stand the heat.
I would think that those reasons
are given as opposed to unexplained weight loss, disease process, etc.
Three reasons...
1. It's good for a company to provide upward pathways for their people.
2. Some accounts can be very complex and require the QA to have prior experience with different special worktypes and/or exposure to certain dictators, etc.
3. There are many things you learn about an MT over the course of their employment that you will never learn from interviewing and even testing a new applicant, however experienced they may be. Unfortunately, our litigious society has rendered reference-checking practically useless, and you will never be able to test any applicant across the full range of dictation that you see coming in from your MT's every day.
There could be several reasons.
1. A lot of companies are hiring and do overhire to get their backlog down. Once their backlog is caught up, they weed out. They don't have to let people go, they can manipulate their queue until they quit. And please don't say this isn't true because one of my ex-friends who was a production manager actually told me this.
2. Benefits are based on production. If management can hire a lot of people, they can produce a lot for their clients, they still get the same bottom dollar. Yet, if the queues or servers are controlled, they can avoid overhead on benefits if production quotas are not met.
3. Why pay domestic employees 7 or 8 cpl when they can pay offshore MTs 3 or 4 cpl? They still have the same amount of production and still make the bottom dollar, yet they can control where the reports are going and who is getting them.
It all comes down to bottom dollar to management and owners. They can control whatever and whomever to achieve their goals. Not all companies are like this, but it is becoming more and more common.
Not working out for a lot of reasons...
The platform they have me on is not user-friendly at all.
It seems simple enough. You have to enter the job # and date, and then press enter to get the template to download with the patient's name, etc.
But if the doc hasn't entered the patient ID correctly, you'll have to look it up.
This can take a minute or several minutes, depending on if the patient exists in the system, among other things.
You'll come out ok if the note is long, but they average about 30 seconds.
Also, the doc may not have entered the correct clinic note ID, or the correct dictator ID, so that's another story.
If all goes well, you'll download a template. If there's something typed in the template, you don't get paid for it...but, if the doc makes changes (which of course they do), you have to delete.
I know what I'm capable of doing, but for some reason, I just can't make any lines working for Spheris.
I gave it a shot, but I'm ready to move on...maybe even change careers.
First, be very sure of the reasons that you want to homeschool.
It is tougher beginning at such a late grade, but it can be done. I started my son in 9th grade 9 years ago, so obviously I know a little bit about it. I also had a great friend who homeschooled her high school kids, so she could get me started with a lot of support and encouragement. Be sure you're ready to be with this child 24/7, because that's pretty much how it will feel. We did have problems with the school but tried every avenue to solve them before saying, "We don't need to put up with this, we do have a choice," when the school counselor said that we didn't have a choice. They thought they ruled my son's world; they were WRONG. I AM HIS PARENT, I believe I do have his best interests in mind when making choices for him. We are a Christian family, so it was easy to start by investigating Abeka Books for materials; bear in mind you'll have to buy all your own materials, nobody helps with that. My son now has his degree and is IT manager at a bank, looking to make VP.
You'll need to check out the homeschooling laws for your state, they vary. Just do an internet search for homeschooling laws for your state. Check around for homeschool groups, there are several out there. But, the biggest thing is just to make sure that you and your child are committed to working together to do this. It does take a lot of commitment and communication to do this and do it right. BEST of luck to you whatever your choice.
So, PFFFT to the person who says kids need to be in school. I know better and obvious hundreds or thousands of others do too.
Those are the reasons I do shop SM
at Target. I have a huge problem with the Salvation Army's practices (be our religion, go to OUR church, adhere to OUR values, or stay cold), I think our government ought to be the ones supporting the military since they sent them where they are, and as for supporting gay and lesbian rights, I think that is a good thing. I'm not sure exactly how you phrased that.
QA can be very tedious for these reasons:
1. You get all the garbage someone else either could not or did not take the time to hear and understand.
2. You often have to fix all kinds of little errors that the MT had no idea they even missed.
3. If you also have to provide feedback, then you will type your fingers to the bone.
I decided after 5 years to go back to being just an MT! :-)
I like your idea for 2 reasons
The MT knows what they need to be taught.. and it would give MTs losing jobs to outsourcing something to do! Great idea!
2 other reasons i've seen are
using the transcription area of the hospital for other things and not having to pay benefits.
There could be any of a number of reasons.
Some physicians have a God complex and freak at the slightest mistake. I have seen that happen many times even if it was something the MT could not control. You should have been given better instructions regarding format, but the powers that be may not have realized you were not. If the physician freaked, the office staff was not going to admit that they did not do their part.
I agree it's one of the reasons
I do this work...hard to get the work done with a baby or preschooler in the house but great once they go to school...no latchkey kid problem. Now if I only had a separate room for my own office...
What are the reasons you want to do MTing?
NM
No, for all the reasons you mentioned.
for those same reasons, i refuse to be a member, though i too was originally. AKA AAMT is like congress today, self-serving, not representing "the people."
a couple of reasons
Canada has 2.1 physicians and 8.8 nurses for 1000 people in their population. Plus they are paid by the government. Approximately 12% of the Canadian physicians practice in the US because they are compensated better.
This was taken from a publication called "Health Care News."
In recent years, patients treated by the Canadian health care system have increasingly experienced lengthy waits to see providers. Treatment waiting times are now part of the public policy debate on the quality of the Canadian health care system.
In its 16th annual installment, the report titled "Waiting Your Turn" tracks how waiting times vary across Canadian provinces depending on the type of treatment needed. The report also documents waiting times for referral to specialists and the subsequent amount of time spent waiting for actual treatment from the specialist.
"Despite all of the promises made by Canada's provincial and federal governments, and despite the fact that Canadians are spending more on health care than ever before, the total wait time in Canada continues to hover near the 18-week mark as it has since 2003," coauthor Nadeen Esmail said in an interview for this article. "Equally troubling is the reality that the total wait time in 2006 is 91 percent longer than it was in 1993."
These findings should give pause to proponents of universal coverage, who often cite Canada as an example of a country where health care costs less than care in the United States and everyone has free health care at the point of service.
"While many proclaim Canada's Medicare program to be one of the best in the world, or suggest it should be the model for reform in the United States," Esmail said, "the reality is that health spending in Canada outpaces that in most other developed nations that, like Canada, guarantee access to care regardless of ability to pay, and yet access to health care in this country lags that available in most of these other nations."
The average amount of time spent waiting to receive treatment after referral by a general practitioner averaged 17.8 weeks across Canada. At 14.9 weeks, Ontario had the shortest waits. Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, and New Brunswick had average waits of 25.8 weeks, 28.5 weeks, and 31.9 weeks, respectively.
Patients referred to a neurosurgeon waited an average of 21 weeks just to see a specialist. Getting treatment required an additional 10.7 weeks.
Patients waited an average of 16.2 weeks to see an orthopedic surgeon, and another 24.2 weeks for treatment to be performed after the initial visit.
The number of people routinely waiting for services is staggering, according to the report. Approximately 1.1 million people had trouble accessing care on a timely basis.
About 201,000 had problems obtaining non-emergency services. An additional 607,000 had problems getting in to see a specialist, and about 301,000 patients experienced problems obtaining diagnostic procedures.
"So much for the myth of government-run health care being compassionate and fair," said David Gratzer, a Canadian doctor and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. "Canadians wait and wait and wait."
In Canada, waiting lists are considered a way of rationing medical care and holding down health care spending. Because health care in Canada is largely free at the point of service, demand is likely to exceed supply. In a typical market system, the price would adjust to the point where the quantity of services provided is equal to the amount patients are willing to buy. But in a system devoid of a market mechanism, scarce resources are rationed through means other than price.
"The long waits for needed care in Canada show the danger of abandoning markets in favor of central planning," explained Sean Parnell, vice president of external relations at The Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based think tank. "Just as there were long lines for food and other basic necessities in the old Soviet Union because planners couldn't accurately match supply with demand, the politicians and bureaucrats who run health care in Canada can't provide enough health care to meet the citizens' needs."
"It's like the old Soviet system," Gratzer said. "Everything is free, but nothing is readily available. Except that we're not talking about lining up for toilet paper in Russia in 1976, but queuing for surgery in Canada in 2006."
Economists generally agree such "non-price" rationing of resources is less efficient than a system that uses prices. One reason is that productivity is lost when people are unable to work due to treatment delays. Also, the risk of death while waiting is higher for serious conditions such as cardiac care.
Waiting lists are consequences of the way the Canadian health care system is structured, not a lack of money, critics say.
"The fact that this is the 16th annual report on wait lists for needed care should be enough to prove that the problem isn't a temporary one that can be fixed with just a little more money, as defenders of Canada's government-run system have claimed for years," Parnell said. "Long waits and widespread denial of needed care are a permanent and necessary part of government-run systems," Parnell noted.
According to the study, Canadian provinces with higher spending per capita did not experience shorter wait times than provinces that spent less. In fact, increased spending was associated with longer waits, unless the increased spending was targeted to physicians and pharmaceuticals.
"The current health care model simply does not deliver to Canadians the access to care they should expect for the amount of money their governments are spending," Esmail said.
Oh please! Now its all about the $$ again. He lives in France for several reasons,
the obvious of which is his wife wants to stay in her homeland, and, secondly, he has said that the Parisians treat him like a regular guy - we all know that celebs living in the USA are stalked and their lives are chaotic trying to avoid stalkers, paparazzi, etc. He feels his children are safe there, and they are his #1 priority. Even a lesser known actor like Gary Oldman, who has NEVER stated anything politically incorrect, had to leave the LA area in the USA because some nut case "fan" keeps threatening to kill his 2 little boys. While Gary Oldman has been quoted as saying he LOVES living in the USA compared to Britain, he's had to return to Europe because the climate for celebreties is not as crazy as it is in the USA. Its INSANE. They do live some of the year in the USA by his family, but he has chosen not to disclose the location or times of year. He is like one of the BIGGEST stars in the world right now - and still nuts hate him. Hmm....I saw BOTH interviews, and read the original "USA hatred" article, and he never said that. While eccentric, the man is brilliant - do you think he'd be stupid enough to say he hated the USA? He NEVER said it, but its just the perfect example of how media manipulates things, and how some of us are naieve enough to believe it. Boycott him all you want - its your loss, not his!
|
