Doctors Aren't Burned Out From Overwork. We're Demoralized by Our Health System.

[Aristus]

14. Speak for yourself, Doctor. I'm both.

I had go down to 4 days a week, 0.8FTE just to avoid burnout from huge productivity expectations. My income took a hit as a result, but it was either that or be a well-paid full-time zombie. But the flaws in our health system are definitely awful. I spend hours each day before clinic starts filling out prior authorizations requested by medical insurers for medications my patients need but their insurance won't pay for. Despite my best efforts to encourage my patients to come to the clinic for dedicated primary care, I still have a lot of patients who go to the area's emergency rooms for primary care issues. This leads to millions of dollars-worth of uncompensated care, which the hospitals write off and pass on to the taxpayer.

I have opioid addicts coming to me for highly-addictive medications because their previous providers focused only on treating the symptom (pain) without ever addressing the underlying causes and treating appropriately (physical therapy, orthopaedic care, etc.)

I have undocumented immigrants whose employers will exploit their labor, but won't pay a decent wage and definitely won't spring for medical insurance. I have to scramble to find charity care for agricultural and construction workers who are working themselves to death in high risk, debilitating jobs.

The sheer irony in all this is, we taxpayers are paying huge costs for private, for-profit medical organizations, uncompensated care, damages due to incompetence, malpractice, medical insurance fraud. We would almost undoubtedly pay less in taxes if we had a national health insurance program.