09/25/2023    Gregory T. Amarantos, DPM

Time to Unionize (Lawrence Kassan, DPM)

I must preface my statement with the fact I love my
profession and have been both blessed and fortunate
over the years. I have the best patients and enjoy
practicing. Years ago I was a podiatrist who knew
some business. Now I am a businessman who knows
some podiatry. Altruistically, we enter the medical
profession to help others, but over the years we
have been forced to become businessmen due to the
changing Medicare rules, the insurance industry and
the large hospital systems. For them it is business
and one cannot compete in the same arena while
thinking like doctors. We need to think like them.

Over the years, I have thought a 2 week “blue-flu”
would wake up the nation. Obviously, emergent care
would still be provided. It would be incumbent upon
the leadership present a forceful response to the
public outcry of such an occurrence. No vanilla-
toast non-confrontational responses will suffice.
An aggressive response enumerating the multiple
factors leading to this “difficult decision “is
imperative. The response would include, but not be
limited to the real costs of practicing, the
effects of inflation in combination with fee
schedule cuts (showing the real dollar amounts
today vs. 29 years ago), the cost of education and
the cost of student loans crippling the young
physicians, the real dollars physicians receive vs.
hospital systems for similar services, etc... The
question that needs to be asked is a simple “what
other profession has similar constraints and a lack
of independence? Mr. Senator, would you be willing
to take a 26% pay cut along with future pay cuts
into the future, all the while fulfilling inane
requirements annually?

A confab of the leadership of the APMA, AOA and AMA
discussing the aforementioned would be interesting.
Unfortunately, in my forty years of practice I have
found most of the medical profession are unwilling
to take unpopular stances and prefer the path of
least resistance. Alas, we reap what we sow.

Gregory T. Amarantos, DPM, Glenview, IL

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09/25/2023    Gregory T. Amarantos, DPM

Time to Unionize (Lawrence Kassan, DPM)

I must preface my statement with the fact I love my
profession and have been both blessed and fortunate
over the years. I have the best patients and enjoy
practicing. Years ago I was a podiatrist who knew
some business. Now I am a businessman who knows
some podiatry. Altruistically, we enter the medical
profession to help others, but over the years we
have been forced to become businessmen due to the
changing Medicare rules, the insurance industry and
the large hospital systems. For them it is business
and one cannot compete in the same arena while
thinking like doctors. We need to think like them.

Over the years, I have thought a 2 week “blue-flu”
would wake up the nation. Obviously, emergent care
would still be provided. It would be incumbent upon
the leadership present a forceful response to the
public outcry of such an occurrence. No vanilla-
toast non-confrontational responses will suffice.
An aggressive response enumerating the multiple
factors leading to this “difficult decision “is
imperative. The response would include, but not be
limited to the real costs of practicing, the
effects of inflation in combination with fee
schedule cuts (showing the real dollar amounts
today vs. 29 years ago), the cost of education and
the cost of student loans crippling the young
physicians, the real dollars physicians receive vs.
hospital systems for similar services, etc... The
question that needs to be asked is a simple “what
other profession has similar constraints and a lack
of independence? Mr. Senator, would you be willing
to take a 26% pay cut along with future pay cuts
into the future, all the while fulfilling inane
requirements annually?

A confab of the leadership of the APMA, AOA and AMA
discussing the aforementioned would be interesting.
Unfortunately, in my forty years of practice I have
found most of the medical profession are unwilling
to take unpopular stances and prefer the path of
least resistance. Alas, we reap what we sow.

Gregory T. Amarantos, DPM, Glenview, IL