The Economy

I'm glad that my position is somewhat insulated from the economic crisis. Most of my patients are medicare age. That's always been a source of lower reimbursment for me. My colleagues who are in places that are only 10% medicare population have had a greater income than me. But now many people with non-medicare insurance are losing their jobs. My colleagues are all seeing dramatic declines in their incomes due to loss of patient base (no job, no insurance, no doctor). There is a difference here as well, but it is rather small. I have only lost a handful of patients from this crisis. I am seeing something else. I am seeing the toll on the patients. They are mostly retired people. Some are concerned about the lost value of their investments. Still, that doesn't seem that bad either. Today SS came in. She has a daughter who isn't working. Her son-in-law was just laid off. Now neither one of them has a job. Their house is worth barely what they paid for it or maybe less. Their child is in college. So she is very distraught. She doesn't really have the means to take care of this mess. So she can't help very much. It's making her arthritis worse and her MS worse. It's making it hard for her to sleep and she feels depressed and tired. This is what I'm seeing a lot of. I'm seeing a lot of parents and grandparents of people who are in real trouble. I don't really know what to say to these people. There isn't really very much that I can think of. It's very hard to sit by and watch your children suffer.