Russ Boston. I so agree with you as usual.

My husband and I both work in two different hospital groups. Both own their docs. He needed an appointment waited three weeks. Doctor had a FOUR minute chat and told him he needed surgery. No exam. We were not happy. I caught one of the doc in the hall at my hospital had a ten minute conversation, he had me call the office and set an appointment soon as possible. Two days later my husband sat with my doc had a full exam and conversation. Appointment lasted forty-five minutes. And by the way no surgery. Yes we both work in the OR and know our way around the health care field. But when you look at the two health care that we work at: One just wants to get it done. The other wants to make sure the patient comes first. We just need to see which the Villages will have to offer and then make up our minds where to take OUR health care needs. There still will be other docs out there if this new group is not up to everyones standards

doctors
 

It would be helpful to know who your doctor is, or what group he is with. It takes time, energy, and frustration to search good doctors out on your own when you're new to an area. Recommendations give you a place to start--much better than opening the yellow pages or reading lists of doctors provided by your insurance co. If someone has a doctor group that treats people with care, if you could please acknowledge them, it would simplify the search for others.

Quick story about MD's who take their time with the patient.

As I mentioned I worked for a practice that had 80 providers. We had a few docs who took forever with their patient. We actually had to allocate an extra 15 minutes per patient for them.

But do you know what? Every single person who worked in the facility that I talked to would rather have had Dr. X who usually spent much less time with the patient. Why? Because he was a BETTER doc. Period!

Time is not the most critical aspect of quality health care IMHO. The most critical aspect of quality health care is - wait for it - Quality!!

THANK YOU!!!!! We have seen too many people wooed into a schmoozing hand-holder's flattery, charming talk, and telling the patient only what they want to hear.....leading patients to believe that bedside manner and the amount of time spent is everything.

But many times, hand-holding and spending a lot of time with a patient is the hideout of somebody who is groping for answers and won't admit he/she doesn't know.

Of course spending time is important....I can't stand abrupt, mechanical doctors....but being caring without being skilled and knowledgeable is a bad combination.

Do you pay federal income taxes? The Villages/USF health alliance is being funded by federal grant money. Amy Wixted said she didn't think Mr. Morse would receive any federal grant money for the new healthcare centers but she couldn't give me a definite "no" to my question. An upcoming lecture by USF, to explain how the health centers work, will be paid for out of the federal grant money. So there is a connection; we just don't know the extent of the connection.

As long as there's a connection, I think we, as taxpayers, have a right to be vigilant. And, also, as taxpayers, we have a right to critical analysis of what we see, without being nagged about being negative.

Another question I asked Ms. Wixted was: How will we know if the new medical centers are successful or not in living up to what we have been told? She couldn't say, just yet, exactly how that would work, but she did say something would be put in place. I expressed my doubts because I know that doctors don't like to report their failures. But she seemed confident that there would be a way to do it.

If it were up to me, I would give each patient a survey form for each visit to their doctor. Or at least a survey once a year.

OH you are so right. Give me a doctor who knows his/her stuff any day over the Marcus Welby type who is not up on things. Helene went to a pediatric specialist at Cincinnati Childrens for many years and I saw her be so abrupt and mean to staff and underlings. She was civil to us but barely warm, but in the end she spotted a serious situation and it was remedied, saving our daughters life. I don't care she was not warm and fuzzy, she knew her stuff and that is what you go to get; Medical expertise.

Critical of course. We have the right. But since we have questions then wouldn't we need these lectures to find out? Catch 22?

Concern
 

I received my enrollment application for the health care center at Colony today. Hmmm! Some concerns. First, the centers will not be billing your supplemental insurance companies -- that's up to the patient. That means waiting for the medicare 'explanation of benefits' document to arrive, which can take 2-3 months. Then the patient needs to dicipher the medicare document, and fill out a form to send to their supplemental insurance company. All told, it could take 4-6 months to get reimbursed. There are a lot of people in TV who will 1) forget to submit the form, or 2) not have a clue how to fill out the form and just ignore it. My current doctor takes care of all insurance submissions, and is a very good doctor. The enrollment application also indicates that the health care center will refer patients to specialists, if needed, so the patient doesn't have to figure out who to call. The information packet makes this sound like a big benefit. My current doctor does this, and every doctor I've gone to for the past few decades has also. I guess I'm a cynic! Morse is the owner of the care centers, and I'm sure he has a way to make lots of $$$ from them. If he was being totally honest about the reasons the care centers are being opened he would say, 1) to make more money for the Morse family and 2) to provide health care(hopefully better) using an established network of doctors.

sounds like the highlighted sentences could make for a great start-up opportunity for an enterprising villager with a background in dealing with hospitsl/doctor billing with medicare and other insurances!

Thank you so much for this information. It's hardly a "Marcus Welby" type care center if you have to take over your own insurance billing. I received a letter (supposedly from Gary Morse) today extolling all the virtues of these health. Are centers and saying this was his dream that he had fought for. The letter neglected to mention what you have claimed.

I thought, that when I first enrolled in Medicare, I was told, by them, that they would automatically forward the remaining balance along with their EOB to my secondary insurance. It's been sevral years, so I may have dreamed that somewhere.

Ah, maybe that's the answer. But why wouldn't they mention that in the application?

Many people I've spoken to say the same thing. There is a lot of skepticism out there. We'll have to wait and see how things shake out.

And as I said before, I am pretty sceptical that anybody can fix the lack of good medical care here.

And as I said before making money is not shameful. Not working when you can work and living off of others who do work is shameful.

I must have been among the missing when the application letters were sent out, or maybe I had not been to settlement yet. Nothing was said about it when I did go to closing tho. So, does that Mean I'm out in the cold when the health center opens at Colony, even though it will be the closest one to where I live (Village of Charlotte)?

We just received the letter yesterday and they have been arriving to all of us for the past few days according to people posting on this forum.

If you recently closed probably you aren't on the mailing list. I am pretty sure that no one will be left out if they want to participate.

Apparently you are correct that Colony is the closest to you, but there are three others planned that are not all that much further. One where Morse will eventually meet with Rt. 44, another down near the County offices at Powell off of 466a and the third at Brownwood. However, I believe what you would feel is more important to you is something that was stated in the letters that are currently being sent out, and I quote:

"Remember we're 92,000 Villagers and we don't know what percentage of you will want to join, but no Villager will be turned away."

You'll probably be a little uneasy until you know what's what for sure. I know I am as the provider my wife and I have is going to be with the Colony facility, and I've been assured by the Program Director that as her patients we will be able to stay with her. But I won't rest easy until what should be, actually is! Welcome to The Villages and have a Merry Christmas!

xcellent response. Recruit businesses, healthcare professionals, to come here, lease them office space or build them buildings, then compete against them. What a concept.
We have great Drs, in The Villages.

Morse needs to do some administartive work on the Hospital, more professionals and support staff needed there to supprt The villages and the surrounding area

Not sure why anyone would treat this announcement any different than any other doctor's office opening. If you want to try them out then do so and see if you like them. If you don't - then don't!

FYI - In case anyone missed it, TVRH is expanding (in it's current location) by almost 100 beds. A new 3,4,5 floor being added to the area that only has two right now. This will make two 'towers' that have 5 floors. Not sure yet as to any new specialties that will be covered etc. Stay tuned.

Really?? You think that the people who are paying those salaries are not going to demand that the doctors see as many patients as possible? Do you know of any salaried people that can just take their time and do their job at their own pace? If a company is going to invest in salaries for doctors, they are going to want to see a return on their investment. You think that investors are going to accept a doctor seeing 50 patients when they could see 100? You think that they'd be willing to pay two doctors if they could get the job done with one? How will this change anything?

Think you may have a point.

BUT

Why not try it out and see if it does make a difference? We can speculate all we want on this forum, but go with an open mind if you need a new doc. Then decide.

Russ, I like your straight-forward approach to this instead of the speculation that's going on which can lead to rumors and misinformation. Being you're in the health care industry, I give you more creditability than I would give to... say, myself who is not.

Now that doesn't mean I don't have some ideas of my own and here's one I'd like to pass on to you for your thoughts. I suspect that this USF Villages Health Care initiative is in part going to attempt to hold down costs by moving more toward something that has been around for many years now. That being a reduced number of MD or DO physicians and an expanded use of PA's, NP's and/or ARNP's under the supervision of MD's or DO's. This can result in considerable savings as the average salary of an MD or DO is well over twice or even thrice or more of the salary of MD's or DO's.

Personally we have been using an ARNP as our provider and it has been as good as an experience as we have ever had with any MD's we've ever had, even better in some ways. The only thing I've detected so far that the ARNP can't do is write script for controlled substances on their own. They need it done by the supervising physician. But I've read that there are some ARNP's in the US that can write CS scripts and that will probably be increasing in the future.