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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: alanrs who wrote (283429)	12/8/2008 6:08:13 PM
From: alanrs	1 Recommendation Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 794337

And as long as I'm at it, the news on the radio this afternoon is that the city of Chicago will stop doing business with BofA because they won't lend that window company money to pay the severance to the laid off workers occupying the factory. Workers interviewed. Politicians interviewed. Chest pounding all around. ARS Edit: I see this is old news as I catch up on my reading.

To: alanrs who wrote (283429)	12/8/2008 6:32:35 PM
From: skinowski	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794337

can't fill the Alegra prescription unless the doctor calls the insurance company and lets them know what it's for so it can be pre-approved. I know most see nothing odd about this. I do. This pre-approval crap is maybe the main reason why I gave up my practice of Internal Medicine which I had for 25 years, and took a salaried position. Not only do the HMO's pay amounts which are not enough to run a practice and to make a living, but they also make people jump through pretty bizarre hoops. Every time a patient needs a CT or a MRI the Doc has to start making phone calls, filling out forms and faxing them, and if the request is denied, that means a new round of negotiations. As I recall, eventually they approved every single one of my requests, but many of them took time - and quite a few heated - and totally unnecessary - arguments. After all, I knew better what my patient needs, so I was able to wrestle them down every time. And for the most part you speak with clerks - only during appeals sometimes you get to talk with MD's. A day came when my office manager told me that it took her 50 minutes on the phone to get a "pre-approval" for one of our patients to have a consultation with a specialist. That was the moment when I made up my mind.