These Guys Really Don’t Like Doctors Very Much
As reported by CNSNews:
Section 1304 of the Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 (H.R. 3200) would raise government Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for certified nurse midwives to the same level as the reimbursement for doctors who perform the same services. Under current law, midwives only receive 65 percent of what a doctor receives for equal services.
It’s hard to understand what the goal is here. Is it to entice more people to enter the field of nurses who train to become midwives?
I think there is definitely a role in our health care system for nurse midwives – especially if they can reduce the number of unnecessary C-sections. The number of C-sections increased over the past couple decades. Many experts believe the increase is because some providers do not want to risk being inconvenienced during their time off by getting called to deliver a baby in the evening or on the weekend.
Hey, Devon. You don’t need as many doctors if the goal is to ration care.
John, as you have previously reported at this blog, this is how babies of the indigent are delivered at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. I suppposed this is where the entire health care system is headed.
I have good words for the care by midwives. The reality is that all midwives in delivery should be backed up by doctors for that unforeseen situation when the doctor has to perform the surgery to save the mother and child. At the same time less surgeries would be done if the midwives could have more opportunity to perform their duties. Its a tandem process. Are we paying for just a service rendered or are we paying for the possibility of a service needed. Are we paying for the fact that the midwife performed the delivery, or are we paying for the fact that the doctor performed the delivery and was trained in all of the additional procedures needed when things go wrong? Somebody has to pay for that education and training– and his malpractice insurance.