“But I Didn’t Ask to Be a Lawyer”: Dealing with Questions of Disability
Everyone involved in the practice of medicine is acutely aware that the nature of their work has changed dramatically over the past one to two decades. For one thing, given the requisites of dealing with managed care, Medicare, Medicaid, HMOs, and PPOs, there is a new language to be learned. The new systems often demand spending paperwork time in excess of that allowed for clinical work, filling out a myriad of constantly changing forms, and doing battle, not with one’s medical peers but with unseen gatekeepers trained in business not in medicine, in defense of treatment plans. To add insult to injury, and perhaps even more in conflict with the practice of good medicine, are those cases involving (1) workman’s compensation (WC) and (2) personal injury (PI) litigation. Most physicians presumably elected medicine over other professions, including business or law, and thus have reason to resent the proportion of their time taken from what they do best, taking care of patients, by the many administrative and legal aspects of practicing medicine.