Letter to Physicians

From CVMS

As an independently thoughtful physician, you are well aware of the challenges of practicing medicine in our current healthcare environment. There is no need for me to enumerate these difficulties here (except I’m going to list a few of them anyway). Let me just say that you are courageous to survive as you are within a severely impaired, fragmented system, getting worse by the minute.

Whether you are totally independent, or practicing within a group framework, the difficulties you face every day can be extremely frustrating for you and your patients. What if you never had to do another prior authorization for writing a prescription? What if you actually got paid for all the extra time you have to put in at the end of every day to keep up your charts and make phone calls? What if you could directly admit someone to the hospital without your patient having to wait three days in the Emergency Room? What if your patient who needs a transfusion could actually get into an infusion center to have this done in less than 48 hours? What if you didn’t have to do a peer-to-peer conversation with an insurance clerk every time you order an imaging study? What if your patient with newly diagnosed cancer didn’t have to wait two months or more to have surgery or to see a specialist? What if insurance companies and government regulators actually trusted physicians to make complex decisions, rather than assume you are fraudulent or incompetent until proven otherwise? Why should patients be incentivized to have procedures done in the hospital when they could be easily and safely done in your office for half the cost?

Almost all of these challenges and barriers to care have developed over the past two decades. What will the next two decades bring?

My purpose for writing this is to offer you the benefit of joining a group of likeminded physicians who would like to re-establish the ability for more physicians to enjoy the practice of medicine, to be fairly compensated for what we do, to be acknowledged for our long years of expensive training. and to have a voice in how patients are treated, instead of being brushed aside as worker-bees by healthcare monopolies. We need to restore autonomy and respect to those who dedicate their lives to the care and healing of patients.

The Coastal Virginia Medical Society (CVMS) represents a merger of the Norfolk, Chesapeake, and Virginia Beach medical societies, but it bears no resemblance to these previous organizations. It has been built from the ground up to focus much more on advocating for the welfare of the healers and their patients by reducing paperwork, increasing efficiency, getting rid of the current barriers to patient care, improving access and delivery, and increasing reimbursement wherever possible. We stand strong in the face of these challenges. We need to reverse the current path and/or at least prevent it from getting worse. Our medical organizations such as CVMS are our only hope to do this.

Please note: We are not radicals. This is not a labor union. We are regular physicians who have lived through the history of this decline and are worried about the future of healthcare. We are not worried about technology or pharmacology. We are worried about healthcare access and delivery, about patients who need and deserve better care, and about those who provide that care. That is what we support – the humanitarian aspect of care, which cannot be ignored as it has been, but which must be integrated within the business and science of medicine. Without all three of these working harmoniously, our health systems will continue to fail.

If you are at all interested in these concepts or in being a part of a group that is willing to strive for improving them, please consider joining us for the very inexpensive fee of $20/month paid annually.

Thank you for your consideration.

Kind regards,

Greg Warth, MD

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Stay up to date on issues and news you need to know. The CVMS Bulletin is published monthly and will list concerns that local physicians have expressed about healthcare in Coastal Virginia and how we can make it better. We will provide potential solutions and let you know what is happening behind the scenes to help solve these problems.