My practice did well enough to allow me to completely retire from medicine at the age of of 55, but thanks for your concern. I am now 74, by the way, and spent the last several years of my career as president of our 12 person anesthesia group.

A good part of my decision to retire involved insurance companies and other non medical entities trying to tell me how I should treat my patients, pharmacies telling me which drugs were "acceptable" and which weren't (based primarily on cost, of course), and hospitals telling me which surgeons I needed to work with and when.

Thank goodness I do not have to work in today's environment

And I don't particularly care what GE thinks.

The Villages Heath - Survey
 

I concur that i'm pleased not to have to work in today's environment.

In my last position I was responsible for 15 hospitals, and a few dozen owned practices. I can guarantee you that I was one of those telling contracted practices (radiology, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, etc.) what my expectations were.

You were what I called a hospital based practice. If you didn't like the terms of the contract you knew the consequences.

I'll let GE speak for himself, but I suspect you know well where I stand.


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[QUOTE=dbussone;1424670]I concur that i'm pleased not to have to work in today's environment.

In my last position I was responsible for 15 hospitals, and a few dozen owned practices. I can guarantee you that I was one of those telling contracted practices (radiology, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, etc.) what my expectations were.

You were what I called a hospital based practice. If you didn't like the terms of the contract you knew the consequences.

I'll let GE speak for himself, but I suspect you know well where I stand.

Oh, and PS, you should know better than blaming the developer by now. If it's not the developer it's the insurance companies or the hospitals, or something else.

I'm pleased you were able to retire successfully but you really need to learn to enjoy yourself


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Back to the letter. What is it that they want ? Some of the posters have assured us it is not to kiss and make up. They have also told us the only motivation driving the Village Health principals is associated with maximizing the economic benefits of their business model and generating profits. What could those former patients who elected to exit their business model because they did not want to buy the only acceptable insurance plan possibly tell them which would allow them to achieve additional economic benefit ?

I think someone told me the specialty practice they have been significantly beefing up will accept insurance plans other then the Advantage Plan they insist everyone purchase to access their primary practice. I might be incorrect about that, but speculate the referrals from the Village Health primary side might not be as many as needed to provide the economic support required to build the specialty practice. Deja' vu all over again ??? Hooray, they might take me back if I need a Urologist, at least until they achieve sufficient volume to again give me " the boot ". Such an action on the Village Health's part certainly would be justified acknowledging the economic reality of modern medicine as explained in depth in this post and others by many individuals.

Nah, that couldn't be their motivation. My imagination is just running away with me.

I think you may be on to something. The deed was done. Why stir the pot?

Your theory is speculation but why would TVHS get former patients who have moved on riled up again? Let sleeping dogs lie.

Why would they spend time and money and risk additional negative optics (justified or not--not the topic here) for this Survey for no good reason? Doesn't make sense.

The speciality practice already accepts other health plans including traditional Medicare. That didn't change when TVH switched to MA only for primary care physicians.

From the TVH Speciality Care web page:

SPECIALTY CARE ACCEPTED INSURANCE:

The Villages Health Specialty Care accepts Medicare and Medicare Supplemental policies in addition to accepting all the plans listed above in Primary Care Accepted Insurance.

Well said. :clap2: I get tired of people bashing the Villages for decisions made regarding The Villages Health. This was a business decision.
Everyone is in business to make money. Lots of people, care centers, supplies, utilities, etc. to take care of.
The Villages / Morse family don't owe us anything. They do a great job of providing us what we need. We then make the decisions.

Completely agree. However, the insurance decision is not the topic of this thread. Neither is the developer.

The thread's topic is the recent letter and the survey. The Mod came on and reinforced this.

A rehash of the issue of the old decision may be very valuable for some. Perhaps a new thread on that topic should be started for those interested in a trip down memory lane. Let's stay on topic.

Yes, I realize that, however, most of the posts are about insurance or refer to insurance.
I'm not "rehashing" just making a comment as I read all of the comments relating to insurance.
I'm sure the moderator will delete me if he/she wants.

There is actually a very practical reason why the specialty practice accepts more insurance carriers. It takes more primary care docs (and their patients) to support specialists. In other words, the specialty docs need referrals from physicians who are not in The Villages Health to make their practice financially successful.

A good business decision pure and simple.


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What do they want from their former patients ? That's the crux of the matter. Have some refused to see The Village Health specialists when referred by primary doctors not associated with The Village Health. Have some of those former patients told those other doctors they want nothing further to do with The Villages Health and why ? If so, might the other physicians be reluctant to refer anyone to The Villages Health specialists ?

The Villages Health principals want something, that is obvious. Apologies are expressions of regret generally offered for wrongs including unjust, dishonest or immoral acts, if I can still read a dictionary correctly. ( No doubt we will soon be debating the meaning of " is " ) Other posters have convinced me any action undertaken by The Villages Health must involve pecuniary gain. What in the world might it be they hope to gain from the survey results ?

Remember Paul Harvey
 

Pauls final words of his commentaries ...

"Now you know the rest of the story"

(To be continued, after the survey....if they release)

Bingo! These are the big unanswered questions, which is why I described the letter as vague.

And you're right, an apology is an apology.

Any way you slice it, this is an interesting, if mysterious, development.

The survey and hiring of the outside firm is indicative of some underling problem. A consideration to keep in mind is the change to Medicare plan C from plan A & B only impacts people over 65. The Medicare law has not changed. With few exceptions, all people in the US 65 and older are covered by one of the Medicare plans. The Villages is a 55+ community with many owners actually less than 55. These people with their insurance are still accepted by TVH. In fact, the average age of TV is around 67. So almost half are not on Medicare and can be treated with their current insurance. Yes, when you hit 65, you have to make choices on which Medicare options your going to take. But to have a system say I will only take one of the two sounds out of step.
I would guess the reason for the letter and the survey has more to do with the actual growth of the 65+ patients compared with the growth expected for the decision to make financial sense. With the growth in TV, the competition in the medical services field has to be huge. They have to have the infrastructure to provide the service, but they need to have the patient numbers grow to make it successful. These are the kind of things that can change decisions.

I agree, many of their underlings are a problem:1rotfl::1rotfl::1rotfl:
However, there may not be an underlying problem, they may simply be looking for information