I've reached the point where I genuinely feel that any physician working for an insurance company in order to justify the denials those companies give to patients should be stripped of their medical licenses.
At this point, we all have to acknowledge that insurance companies are acting as entities that harm patients in the name of profit by denying care and as physicians we all took an oath to first, do no harm.
I don't wanna get all kumbaya and woo-woo about this but when I took my oath (over zoom because of my covid graduation) upon graduating from medical school I, like, meant it? Like, taking that oath was meaningful and symbolic and when I made that oath I genuinely was committing myself to uphold the things I said for the rest of my life, it wasn't just another thing to check off the list in my medical training journey. The moment I became a doctor was when I took that oath.
And I think as a profession, we need to start ousting these doctors who are working in tandem with these insurance companies to act as barriers to care in the name of profits. Who are lending their medical licenses to be used in this way, who are harming the dwindling public trust people may have left in our profession by using their position in society to literally hurt people.
Physicians who work for insurance companies should be embarrassed and ashamed and none of us should acknowledge them as colleagues. We need to actively and publicly shun them. The AMA should publicly support this and would if the people who run it weren't a bunch of bootlicking cowards who kowtow to fascists and support union busting.
AND!
A common argument that the physicians working for these companies will make is that they want to be able to help people from the inside or change things from the inside. That they're trying to help people get coverage.
Except we know yall get dinged for not providing enough denials. We all know yall get in trouble at work if you approve too many patients. We know yall get in trouble if you spend more than a comically low amount of time (seconds) reviewing requests for coverage, We ALL know you are often providing a medical basis and justification for these denials even though you don't work in, have never worked in, and aren't up to date on the standard of care for that particular specialty when we are forced to do peer to peers with you.
Like why is a colorectal surgeon able to say a patient's nipple sparing mastectomy for breast cancer not medically necessary and therefore get to deny it (this is a real example) when you don't even know the indications? And now that this shit is being exposed online by physicians recording themselves doing peer-to-peers you cowards are refusing to give your names and specialties.
Get the fuck out of here. You're there for the blood money and the nice hours. You're there so you can still afford your mortgage on your mcmansion and your payment on your Lexus while working 9-5. You're literally killing people and doing these insurance companies' dirty work and helping them justify it so you can have a vacation home. You're not a doctor anymore, you're just a greedy piece of shit who found it easier to let an insurance company use your medical license to kill people than to do actual patient care and deal with the accountability that entails. Just be honest about it.
Patients should be allowed to sue the SHIT out of you, personally, for denying them care. Do you think United Healthcare or BCBS are gonna protect you?
Truly, fuck any physician who works for an insurance company. Yall are cowards who don't deserve to have medical licenses or even call yourselves doctors. Medical schools should rescind your diplomas for being complicit in killing people.
