The current medico-politico-ignoramico changes in Washington are kind of important, eh? Might the decisions made by our “representatives” have an impact upon your career? Your strategy? Your income? Your ulcer?
Even though we all have our hands full deciding how much lutein we should recommend, we are stuck trying to predict the future of eye care. If I could predict the future, my office would be in Vegas.
My own personal way of planning is to evaluate every possible scenario, making endless lists of “if this, then that.”
I want to share some of these specific ideas with you, but I do not want partisan politics to close anyone’s eyes to the concepts. So, instead of using the terms “Republican/Conservative/Tea Party Wingnut” or “Democrat/Progressive/Liberal Space Agent,” I will simply refer to “Fo” and “Fum” in no particular order. (This is obviously taken from the old saying, “Fee-fie-fo-fum, I smell the socialist health care system of an Englishman.”)
Here are some thoughts:
• Fees
If the Fos win, I will keep my fees the same (sounds logical enough) because I will probably be 90 when things change.
If the Fums win, I will answer my own phone, refract for food, put in a soda pop machine, and charge my own mother to replace nose pads.
• New Technology
Fos: I will invest in anything that looks pretty, sounds important, and tells me why patients “no show.”
Fums: I will go green. Whoops! I mean I will turn green.
• Contact Lenses
Fos: I will continue to stress proper schedules of disposal to every patient.
Fums: I will show up at every patient’s door and gently rip those old contacts out of their eyes.
• Medicare
Fos: I will work with Medicare for fair reimbursement for the elderly—those who need eye care the most after all.
Fums: I will improve efficiencies by just going ahead and directly billing the great grandchildren of all my Medicare patients for the care the kids will have to pay for 50 years from now anyway for their great grandpa’s dry eye care in 2011.
• Standard of Care
Fos: In-office imaging.
Fums: Hold the phone up to your eye so I can hear what’s wrong.
• Phoropter
Fos: Cleaned and calibrated yearly.
Fums: Want +2.00 or -2.00? Your call.
• Foreign Body Removal
Fos: Instill proparacaine and utilize a sterile, stainless steel spud.
Fums: Take a swig of this, bite down on this old shoe, and utilize my wife’s old eyebrow tweezers.
• Retirement Planning
Fos: Are you serious?
Fums: Are you kidding?
Now this list is, by no means, an exhaustive review of all the plans I have in my repertoire. We haven’t even talked about the idea I have regarding the worth of my spleen on the black market and increasing my donations to the AOA PAC, but it gives you the template you may use in your own life as health-care changes come rolling in like the dust clouds in Arizona.
Will the Fos or the Fums fix it all? Depends on the Fees, right?
Fie upon them both!
