[NPInfo] Re: Jeffs letter

Sun Sep 2 19:11:13 PDT 2007

   Tracy,

       No, I think that is EXACTLY the point.  The doctors don't have any objection until the money for our labor is taken out of their pockets and put in the pockets of big business.  Big business has found an innovative way to cut the doctors out and they are ticked off about it.  They can't fight back in any manner except to cast doubt about us. 

       Think of us as a commodity if it will help you.  Imagine that we are a product on the shelf in the doctors' offices that only they are allowed to sell.  Now imagine that another business puts the same product on its shelf at a cheaper price.  Our situation is similar, and it is as if the doctors are saying the product which they promoted when they owned it is now second-rate and not to be trusted.

       The point I've made is NOT that we are setting up independent practices.  The point is that we are functioning in a dependent employee situation analogous to the ones we held in a doctor's office.  The point I've made is that the docs' complaints ring hollow because they are only making the complaints when we are no longer profitable to them; our profits are now going to big corporations.  Doctors complain about quality of care because they can't say, "We're pissed off because Wal-Mart stole our golden gooses."

       The issue has never been the care we provide.  It is about who makes money from our labors.  It is like we are this precious profit center now being struggled over by a clash of titans.  We want the corporates to win because it will eventually lead to our autonomy.  The docs are scared.  They are angry.  They are losing profits AND that profit source is going to compete with them directly.  But they can't say that, of course, so we must say it for them!

             Jeff

Tracy Klein <whcnp at comcast.net> wrote:

> Jeff.
I was right there with you up until the point of taking the profit 
and giving it to a large corporation being linked to us being 
"independent".
They are two entirely different issues, socioeconomically and 
politically.
Unless of course, you own the corporation. Which is still illegal for 
NPs, in many states.
Tracy Klein, WHCNP, FNP
Portland, Oregon
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 10
> Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 17:27:37 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Jeffrey Hazzard 
> Subject: Re: [NPInfo] Re: NPInfo Digest, Vol 18, Issue 4
> To: NP Info 
> Message-ID: <962214.24963.qm at web31309.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Tracy,
> This is not about indentured servitude in a doctor's office. 
> This is about them restricting us being independent, and about 
> their besmurching our name unfairly. It is bad enough that they 
> are profiteering with us in a dependent posture, but now to 
> actively campaign against us coming into our own in a role that 
> will make us marketable goes too far. They love us, so long as we 
> are making them a profit. Take that profit and give it to a large 
> corporation (CVS, Wal-Mart) and we are no longer safe, effective, 
> or competent. DISGUSTING.
> Respectfully, I would emphatically repeat my thinking here 
> that we must get to the matter....that we expose the doctors for 
> their true motivation and not let them misrepresent their 
> objections to us to the press and the public. The doctors are 
> blatantly using the public's trust in them to keep the public from 
> getting competent, cost effective care. We can't sit still while 
> this happens, and we can't sugar coat it. Remember, American 
> newspapers are written on an 8th grade reading level. We have to 
> confront them on all these practices or we will be back in the 
> handmaiden box again.
> WAKE UP ALL OF YOU AND GET SNAPPING. OUR PROFESSIONAL 
> FUTURE IS ON THE LINE.
>
> Jeff
>
> Tracy Klein wrote:
>
> Choose your favorite NP outcome study to insert into
> Jeff's letter:
> http://www.acnpweb.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3321.
> Or better yet, conduct your own...
> Please, however, move beyond why doctors are doing
> this or why its not fair. Prove it and call it what it
> is. Learn how to figure out how much you are
> contributing to their bottom line.
> Tracy Klein, MS, WHCNP, FNP
> Portland, Oregon
>
> ___________________________________________________
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2007 04:30:39 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Jeffrey Hazzard
> Subject: [NPInfo] Jeff's answer to doctor attacks
> To: npinfo npinfo , ACC Listserv
>
> Cc: SGrtWhite at aol.com
> Message-ID:
> <971290.48063.qm at web31304.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> Steve,
>
> [ Here's what I'd say. I tried to prioritize, so
> that if you can
> only say some of it, the points are in descending
> order of importance.
> The last tag line in the last paragraph should be
> said last in any
> interview. This is the written form. If it is
> spoken in a soundbite, it
> should be said a lot less formally, or it will come
> out sounding as
> though it is being read aloud. ]
>
> "The doctors are running scared. Their fear,
> however, is for
> their pocketbooks, not their patients. ALL evidence,
> including a large
> study by the Federal Government Accountability Office
> (GAO) and another
> head to head prospective, randomized clinical trial
> published in
> ____________(either JAMA?? or NEJM??) each strongly
> concluded that NPs and
> PAs provide safe, comprehensive care comparable to
> that of a doctor, and
> at lower cost. For doctors to say that patients are
> placed at risk
> when they are cared for by a NP or PA is not accurate
> and smacks of turf
> protection and scare-mongering, not scientific
> reality.
>
> "In more than 15 states NPs practice
> INDEPENDENTLY (no
> relationship to a doctor at all) providing all
> aspects of primary care. Most
> rural NPs and PAs function autonomously in clinics
> without a physician
> present. Both professionals are usually the only one
> in a patient room
> synthesizing myriad data and health parameters to
> diagnose and
> prescribe diagnostic tests and medications
> INDEPENDENTLY. Rates of patient
> satisfaction, health statistics, and malpractice
> rates in primary care are
> at least as good, and sometimes BETTER, for NPs and
> PAs when compared
> to doctors.
>
> "Doctors pride themselves at employing scientific
> method in an
> evidenced-based practice. All evidence would show
> that spokesperson
> doctors representing professional organizations are
> willing to part from
> scientific data when their long-held monopoly on
> power and money are at
> risk.
>
> "We are now hearing a lot about NPs and PAs
> because they are
> individually visible, employed in places like retail
> clinics and
> community-based offices. Doctors never objected to
> NPs and PAs working in clinics
> by themselves at health departments, migrant health
> clinics, urban
> ghetto outreach clinics for the poor, or in public
> school systems.
> Doctors only started thinking about 'patient safety'
> when those patients had
> health insurance and the ability to pay."
>
> "When doctors try to limit the medical practice of
> NPs and PAs they
> are directly hurting the public. One out of six
> Americans has no
> health insurance. We have a shortage of health care
> providers that is
> rapidly growing worse. It is time for doctors to put
> the American public
> ahead of their own interests. It is time for them to
> back off and
> realize that NPs and PAs are not nearly as large a
> threat to their incomes
> and power as having all Americans realize trust
> placed in doctors has
> been violated by the doctors themselves."
>
> Jeff
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> NPInfo mailing list
> NPInfo at nurse.net
> http://lists.nurse.net/mailman/listinfo/npinfo
> *****************************
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with 
> Yahoo! FareChase.
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> NPInfo mailing list
> NPInfo at nurse.net
> http://lists.nurse.net/mailman/listinfo/npinfo
>
> End of NPInfo Digest, Vol 18, Issue 6
> *************************************

_______________________________________________
NPInfo mailing list
NPInfo at nurse.net
http://lists.nurse.net/mailman/listinfo/npinfo
*****************************

---------------------------------
Boardwalk for $500? In 2007? Ha! 
Play Monopoly Here and Now (it's updated for today's economy) at Yahoo! Games.