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AFSOC Med Team Video
- Thread starter Nasty
- Start date
I don't mind our folks going to civilian hospitals, but am getting tired with military facilities bringing civilian patients in.
policemedic
Verified SWAT
It's a catch-22, isn't it. Staff at MTFs must maintain their skill sets, and the patients must come from somewhere. Many schoolhouse trained medical providers simply do not get to see the volume of patients and acuity levels their civilian counterparts do. At the end of the day, I want the most experienced doc taking care of me; I don't want the first time he sees condition X to be when I'm rolled in the door.
On the other hand, there is a strong argument to be made against the use of federal funds allocated to MTFs for the treatment of non-dependent civilians.
1. Can you name a Military Hospital that is not near a civilian facility? I can't. Folks at BAMC could easily go to a civilian facility to traet trauma cases.
2. Federal Law prohibits medicaid/medicare funds from being transferred to the DoD. That means when a crack whore/meth head/drunk driver comes in the funding for their treatment is out of the DoD budget. That means money allocated for Military care is spent on non-DoD personel. BTW-That budget may get cut in half next week, how do we pay for care to Military folks, their families, and retirees then? Put us all on medicare/medicaid?
policemedic
Verified SWAT
Sorry for the late reply, this one got by me.
I have no argument with your points. The financial issue is real. With that serving as a caveat, I do think there is some benefit to the MIL health system to be gained by treating civilians (to a limited extent, and with emphasis on certain conditions/injuries).
It's true that a BAMC doc could go off-post and consult on burn patients, but that scenario leads to limited benefit. Sure, the doc hones his skills, but the overall team at BAMC does not. There are scads of people on the multi-disciplinary team who benefit when the patient is transported to, and seen at, BAMC.
What I don't know, and maybe someone here does, is whether the DoD can recover some costs from a patient's health insurance, if they have it.
At the end of the day, I don't disagree with you; I just would like to see some middle ground established that allows for some give and take on both sides. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the care delivered to the warfighter at every echelon of care, and I think outsourcing our docs and taking in civ patients both contribute to achieving that goal. It just has to be managed in such a fashion that it doesn't have a paradoxical effect.
I don't get as upset with burn patients as I do with the other trash they roll in. BAMC get's it's "share" of trauma cases. SanAntonio owes the DoD over $1M in serviices, yet charges TriCare for ambulance runs.
DoD can charge insurance companies, but non-insured folks get it for free, with 6 months of follow-up.
Jon McCain wants to boot me out of TriCare prime, and force me into TriCare Standard (raising my premium to 3500/year). FWIW-Try finding good TriCare Standard accepting docs in SATX. In effect, I will pay 3500/year for MedicAid. Some illegal from (insert country) gets the same care free.
Can't agree with you more SOWT, I waited 9 months for a surgery I needed fairly quickly (suffering a good amount of muscle atrophy due to a few pinched nerves). Every time I would show up for my scheduled surgery, some trauma patient (normally a car wreck) would bump my surgery time and I would be pushed back another 2-3 months. After it happened 3 times I took it up to the BAMC CG and finely got the surgery two weeks later. Still have problems with muscle atrophy.
