Problem With Doctor Certification

[jaman]

Hi dr Bob it's good to have you still fighting the good fight. Thanks

[Dr. Bob]

They are making a stretch to try and file criminal conspiracy and medical fraud charges against doctors for medical board issues as you mentioned.  The purpose of this is to intimidate physicians in to not signing certs.  No doctor wants to deal with that.  This even goes toward doctors providing expert testimony for patients, it is an effort to stop them from stepping forward.

 

Unfortunately there are so called clinics and even individual activists that were exploiting loopholes with the end goal of getting 'quasi legalization' by signing folks up with minimal qualifications beyond a piece of paper with a doctor's signature.  There were clinics eager to make a buck on the loose rules- using the argument nothing was specifically required in the 'bona fide dr/pt relationship' so therefore they could sign certs in the mail based on patients filling out a form saying they were sick, or dropping off a filled out application and some cash, or even simply sending a check.  They would send support staff out to remote clinics to collect paperwork and the doc would 'review' it later and sign the cert.

 

The problem is, we lost some legitimate dr/pt visits as they changed the law to stop those kinds of activity.  Telemedicine is one example of something we lost (but not really) which hurt the remote areas of the state.  But with some minor changes and additional staff we were able to adapt and continue to serve those folks.  One thing that came out of the changes was our move to electronic medical records.  We are completely eliminating paper charts and every patient record will be organized and available anywhere in the state as long as there is an internet connection.  

 

There is always an up side to any change.  This one improved our record keeping and allowed us to hire additional staff.  We even added additional clinics in the UP and opened a full time office in Muskegon.  Now that the hotel signature clinics are no longer draining off patients, we can support the additional clinics.  Overall, the quality of certifications coming out now has improved, because only actual physician based medical clinics are doing most of the certs (there are several in addition to mine).  We can continue to build support in the traditional medical community because the clinics are no longer just a cattle call in a hotel.  They are doctors offices and physician based outreach clinics.

 

Dr. Bob

Edited May 9, 2013 by Dr. Bob