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Technology Stocks : Healtheon Corporation (HLTH) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg h2o who wrote (690)	5/18/2000 11:08:00 AM
From: Herc	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 861

If an employee of a publically traded company, such as an internet start up, works hard and the company prospers, then the employee can get rich on stock options. If you are physician, you have just the opposite incentives. In an HMO setting, you are PENALIZED if you bill more. And if you're capitated ( which is now spreading to specialists), you don't get paid any more no matter how often you see the capitated patients. In fact you are putting yourself at risk if you do surgical procedures on these patients because of the risk of suits. I don't think an internet start up would stay in business long if their revenues didn't go up on more hits to their websites or more purchases of their products. But this is exactly the position physicians are in. Physicians still make more money than most people. Nevertheless it is demoralizing to see your income dropping. HMO's are an evil system that put the physician's best interest at odds with the patient's best interest so the HMO can make more $$$. As I said, it is doctor's morals holding the system together. But that is not enough to keep doctors motivated. I don't think this is a very healthy environment for HLTH.

To: Greg h2o who wrote (690)	5/18/2000 10:11:00 PM
From: M. Frank Greiffenstein	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 861

Herc is right. I am a doctor too (Ph.D., not MD/DO) and work with patients. But he is correct when he asserts that only the hard work and sacrifice of physicians is keeping the whole thing afloat. If physicians revolted and refused to work under the conditions they do, we will have to make some hard choices. Either we accept rationing for the prices we pay, or we pay more for service on demand. I was reading in a Michigan paper that physicians in the northern part of the state are refusing now to accept Medicaid or Medicare patients. Some are refusing to accept any insurance at all, they demand cash. And they are getting it. Politicians have overpromised and over regulated medicine. They think that "the finest medical system in the world" should be available to everybody, but nobody should have to pay for it. Either we get less of what is promised, or we pay more. Its that simple. Europe spends much less on medical care and rations it to some degree, but they are healthier then we are. Why is that? DocStone