Medical System Rant
My cousin's wife was just induced and she gave birth to a healthy baby boy (5 lbs, 11 ounces), so thanks be to God.
However this is what irritates me. The reason they induced three weeks early was that they said the baby wasn't growing anymore. This was based on three ultrasounds they did within a one-week period. How the hell are they going to be able to tell there is no growth from images in such a short span of time? So they sit these two down to freak them out–this is their first pregnancy–and say something might be wrong so we're going to induce three weeks early. Nothing showed up as wrong on the first ultrasound–why did they do the next two? These things are all done "just in case", thank you Mr. Trial-lawyer. I'm sure that they were ready to section her if the labor they induced wasn't "progressing" as they say, at least not progressing fast enough to allow the doctor to leave on his precious schedule. So that would have been even more moolah, but too bad–they missed that score.
This seems to me to be one of the things which is placing a huge strain on the medical system, driving up costs and why maternity insurance is so high. If it were a one-off I wouldn't be so strident, but I've heard too many stories of medical professionals scaring people–sometimes advising abortions... and the baby turns out 100% healthy. It's all to shorten "turn-around" on the process and thereby increase cash flow from the insurance firms.
We've done a total of two ultrasounds for six pregnancies. I know we're at the other end of the spectrum, doing home births with midwives and paying out of pocket with an HSA and that's not for everyone, I'll admit. You do have to admit that we're keeping costs down this way. I know I shouldn't extrapolate my own experience into data, obviously, but it just seems this obsession with multiple ultrasounds smells like a scheme to milk the coverage, especially at the tail end of an otherwise uneventful pregnancy. If the Government takes over there will be even more milking of the system going on, methinks.
sounds like someone wanted to go on vacaysheeown, it being early July and all. am i right or am i right?
ReplyDeletethere is big milking of the system in socialized health care. on the rush program today with Mark Steyn someone called with this info: to do an end run around the inevitable waits with socialized medicine, people call 911 for things like yeast infections and high blood pressure, sometimes even being helicoptered into the hospital if they say the right thing.
I don't know if it's milking of the system so much as trial lawyers. When you can get sued for unlawful birth because the child gets born with some defect the parents weren't warned about so they could safely abort it, it's all about the CYA. Remember the big John Edwards case where the child was born with cerebral palsy or something and Edwards was "channeling" the child?
ReplyDeleteKathleen, good call re: vacay. If Obamacare passes, I guess we'll all learn the right things to say to 911 like "I'm a minority!" or we'll go dramatic: "Goodbye cruel world.... Aaaaackkkk!"
ReplyDeleteBarb, I agree that fears about lawsuits are huge and that might explain something like this. But it just seemed to be like a senseless exercise -- 3 ultrasounds within 1 week? This woman graduated from college about 2 or 3 years ago and she's the type of person who goes hiking in the mountains. She had an exceptionally good first pregnancy; the more I think about it, I think Kathleen's right. This was most likely driven by convenience during vacation season.
My wife and I did a natural birth (well, technically my wife did the birthing, but you know what I mean), and we're seriously considering a home birth for the next one. We did regular ultrasounds at the outset, and I don't have a huge issue with them in theory, but I'm totally with you on the completely unnecessary fear instilled into parents. Even in our case we were kind of rushed because my wife's water started leaking about 18 hours before she started pushing, so that was hitting upon some kind of arbitrary time frame at which it becomes necessary to induce.
ReplyDeleteI don't discount the fact that in a lot of caces the doctors feel pressured by concerns of potential lawsuits to do what they do, but it's amazing to me that in a desire to be "safe" our response is to do costlier and more invasive procedures.
My opinion is that the answer to the costliness is to have doctors involved less and less -- as little as possible. It's simply not their area of expertise and never really was historically until recent times. True, medical advances have improved survival rates of mother and baby alike, but in the best cases the doctor is getting overpaid to stand there looking like an impatient dunce. Male doctors are especially ill-suited to this work, IMHO.
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