Doctors will never willingly concede ground to what they consider " lesser " medical professionals. Attempts by the government to off-load more routine work to nurses in areas where doctors are in short supply has received a cool reception.
Obviously delivering flu shots could be undertaken without the need for a doctor to be present, but doctors guard their turf ferociously - and they fall back on the argument that only they are fully trained to detect ailments that a lesser trained professional might miss.
In recent years the government provided incentives for medical practices to include a staff nurse who would do the time consuming work of taking blood samples, delivering flu shots and similar work.
Have you noticed how this has been artfully worked into the medical regime ? When you present for a routine matter - including script renewal - the nurse attends to you and gets proceedings under way - and then the doctor pops his head in the door - listens to a briefing from the nurse - signs any scripts needed - and returns to seeing other patients !
Technically - you have just " seen the doctor " - and the bill that will go to Medicare will be for a consultation with the doctor !
The medical profession has two things in mind. The first is to guard their expensive and long training period's reward of earning a high income - and the second is to guard their monopoly on giving health advice.
We live in a changing world. The cost of medicine is pushing budgets to unsustainable levels and the training of nurses has reached tertiary levels. The time has arrived for a more balanced approach. Just as general practitioners pass patients on to specialists - nurses seeing patients should be referring them to doctors when ailments are beyond their skill levels.
This is unlikely to happen unless legislation makes it so !
No comments:
Post a Comment