12/11/2024    Robert Kornfeld, DPM

RE: URGENT - Contact Your Representative About H.R. 10073 (Ron Freireich, DPM)

Dr. Freireich poignantly points out that "No other
profession would put up with this year after
year." And he is right. This is the point that I
have been trying to get across for decades now.
There is no profession that I know of that is as
highly regulated and consistently exploited and
abused as doctors. Every one of you who
participates with insurance year after year,
either by running a practice that depends on
insurance reimbursements or are employed by PE
where insurance is still the method of
reimbursement for the corporation are actually,
perhaps unwittingly, feeding the monster.

As long as you "employ" the insurance companies to
run things, they will continue to steal from you.
And since they know you don't do anything about
it, they steal more and more every year. They are
nothing but an extremely dishonest employee
constantly pocketing the money they collect at the
front desk. And not only don't you fire them, you
keep them right at the collections desk!

I have been in my own private practice since 1982.
I have watched (with horror) as the "negotiations"
that we have been embroiled in all these years
with insurance companies have eventually led to a
cut in reimbursement by 90% since I began, when
you factor in inflation and CODB. So much for
negotiations.

Your challenge is that you have never placed value
on your education, training, experience and
expertise. You continue to convince yourselves
that you cannot survive without insurance. And I
am here to tell you that is the very mindset that
has you backed up against the wall every time you
sit down to pay your bills. We are now in an era
where insurance has made medicine an absolute
pathology in and of itself. It hurts doctors and
it hurts patients. It interferes with quality
care. It forces you to see an inordinate number of
patients where you cannot do your best for
everyone. And it is imploding on you and you are
still sitting in the sinking boat.

Don't you think it is time for a change in
mindset? Perhaps those of us who have been in
direct-pay for years know what we are talking
about. I have enjoyed the past 24+ years not
dealing with insurance companies. I have had a
stellar experience since walking away from the
madness (and it has gotten a lot madder since I
left). My income has been much better on just 8-10
patients daily, my outcomes far superior and my
doctor-patient bonds much deeper.

When I do retire, I will look back on my career
with feelings of success and fulfillment. And that
is what ALL of you deserve as well. But it won't
happen if you continue in the same vein. You all
know Einstein's Theory of Insanity - doing the
same thing over and over again expecting a
different result!

Robert Kornfeld, DPM, NY, NY

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