Who We Are
We are a group of practicing orthopedists who believe that the concerns of our patients supercede our professional needs. Put another way, we believe that our professional needs are defined by the needs of our patients. We intend to advocate for our patients and communicate our vision both within the profession and to outside policy makers. We also hope to extol the non-financial joys and pleasure of practicing orthopedics.
Our Goals and Purposes
We support policies that put patient interests first and foremost. This focus on the patient will be critical as our health care system is forced to evolve over the next several years due to funding constraints. Our federal government has now guaranteed and may possibly spend up to $7.7 trillion on a bailout of our financial institutions. Furthermore, the U.S. Treasury Department just reported a record federal budget deficit of $1.42 trillion for the 2009 fiscal year, alone. This deficit of over10% of our nation's GDP shatters the post-World War II record of 6% set decades ago. Even before our current economic crisis, as our page Federal Realities, makes clear, federal spending on health care was already on an unsustainable course. Our current financial crisis has only worsened a very severe preexisting structural problem.
In addition, the states are facing a near perfect financial storm of their own. As our page, The States, demonstrates, almost all state governments are expecting large drops in revenues for the next few years and nearly all will reduce their Medicaid spending in one form or another. Therefore, neither the federal government through our Medicare program, nor the states through their assorted Medicaid programs will be able to maintain access to care for their citizens, pay for all needed medical services, and continue to reimburse health care providers at current levels. Reform is inevitable and needed, and meaningful reform will change the manner in which physicians are reimbursed.
As a response to this looming crisis in medical spending, we note that both a few general medical societies and some specialty societies are responding by developing arguments that place physicians' concerns ahead of patient interests. As an example, how many times have we read that specialty physicians claim that they cannot currently afford to treat Medicare patients and will refuse to see them if reimbursement is reduced. This argument is seriously advanced despite the fact that even a cursory look at AAOS census information or data from other specialty societies reveals that we continue to enjoy quite high compensation levels--compensation levels that, as a matter of fact, far exceed the historical average for our profession.
We, as a society, hope to achieve the following: we intend to educate our colleagues on the financial crisis confronting our health care system; we plan to push for reforms that improve quality of patient care and expand the practice of evidence based medicine; we intend to advocate always for the patient as health care financing changes in the coming years, and we plan to celebrate the many joys and rewards of being an orthopedist, one of the best jobs on earth.
Our Mandate as American Citizens
The conclusion of this years Message To The Public from our Social Security and Medicare Trustees reads as follows:
" The financial difficulties facing Social Security and Medicare pose serious challenges. For Social Security, the reform options are relatively well understood but the choices are difficult. Medicare is a bigger challenge. Its cost growth can be contained without sacrificing quality of care only if health care cost growth more generally is contained. But despite the difficulties—indeed, because of the difficulties—it is essential that action be taken soon, particularly to control health care costs.