For those of you who are healthcare workers, I wish you didn't have to be heroic in the coming days, weeks, and months, but you do and thank you, thank you, thank you.

I watched this and thought of all we'll owe you.

Some crazy stuff happening. Nothing yet at my facility but there is hypotheticals of housing staff and not letting people leave so essentially work 2 weeks straight. Paid 24 hours round the clock with OT. I would actually be down for that lol.

x2jmorris: "Some crazy stuff happening. Nothing yet at my facility but there is hypotheticals of housing staff and not letting people leave so essentially work 2 weeks straight. Paid 24 hours round the clock with OT. I would actually be down for that lol. "

You'll earn it. I'm assuming, if it hits hard in your area, that you'll be working 18 or so hours of a 24-hour day, plus you'll be cut off from friends and family. I've been reading doctors' accounts of their lives in NYC and that's what they're reporting.

So, pre-thanks, and I don't begrudge your coming huge paychecks a single penny.

missmolly: "For those of you who are healthcare workers, I wish you didn't have to be heroic in the coming days, weeks, and months, but you do and thank you, thank you, thank you.

I watched this and thought of all we'll owe you. "

Second this. Thank you so much!!

The wifey thanks you.

Yes thanks to those dedicated and brave folks taking care of others while putting themselves at risk. I wish I could do something to ease their burden like buy them a nice dinner or send some treats. I’m sure the food from the cafeteria gets old and going out to lunch may not work.

LindenTree: "The wifey thanks you.
"

Wow, Lindy, you got to be heroic for years and now it's your wife's turn! Since heroism is your family's thing, your dog better make like Lassie any day now.

Absolutely!! I already owe my life to my incredibly large medical team. With a pandemic, we all owe them our lives once again.

missmolly: "

LindenTree: "The wifey thanks you.
"

Wow, Lindy, you got to be heroic for years and now it's your wife's turn! Since heroism is your family's thing, your dog better make like Lassie any day now."

Thanks mm,
I'm actually worried about her, now I know how she felt when I would leave on a moments notice to fight some fire across the country.

Ps, I've got the dog doing the Lassie thing
l just throw his toy into an old abondonded well and say.
"Go find Timy"

LindenTree: "

missmolly: "

LindenTree: "The wifey thanks you.
"

Wow, Lindy, you got to be heroic for years and now it's your wife's turn! Since heroism is your family's thing, your dog better make like Lassie any day now."

Thanks mm,
I'm actually worried about her, now I know how she felt when I would leave on a moments notice to fight some fire across the country.

Ps, I've got the dog doing the Lassie thing
l just throw his toy into an old abondonded well and say.
"Go find Timy""

Yeah, it's tough being the one left home to worry.

Your Timmy in the well story made me laugh out loud!

+1

100% gratitude to all first responders and everyone else deemed "essential."

Thank you for the recognition. I'm a Critical Care RN working in a cardiac ICU. We're doing what we were educated and trained for and hoping that the efforts underway to slow the spread of the C19 virus are effective so that the resources available will meet the demand. Lots of uncertainty right now, but one thing I'm sure of is we will get through this. Be safe guys.

mirth: "100% gratitude to all first responders and everyone else deemed "essential.""

Yes, just saw the Fedex truck drive past our house from my home office. There are a lot of people keeping us going. Yesterday the garbage got picked up and groceries got delivered. Kudos to all those folks too.

Great post. Today is day 14 for me being in the hospital so I really have a renewed respect for our healthcare workers. It is also day 3 with NO visitors so I hope that everyone keeps posting on BWCA.com so I have something to do. I can't turn on the TV anymore because of all the doom and gloom. I'm at the point where I stay in my room with the door closed hoping that the staff is virus-free. I'm transferring out of here on Monday to another facility for another extended stay, again no visitors allowed. I'm trying to decide if if picked a good time or a bad time to have a stroke, if there is a such a thing. Compared to what many other people in the world are going through right now, I actually feel like one of the luckier ones (I don't have to fight for toilet paper at least).

Northwoodsman: "Great post. Today is day 14 for me being in the hospital so I really have a renewed respect for our healthcare workers. It is also day 3 with NO visitors so I hope that everyone keeps posting on BWCA.com so I have something to do. I can't turn on the TV anymore because of all the doom and gloom. I'm at the point where I stay in my room with the door closed hoping that the staff is virus-free. I'm transferring out of here on Monday to another facility for another extended stay, again no visitors allowed. I'm trying to decide if if picked a good time or a bad time to have a stroke, if there is a such a thing. Compared to what many other people in the world are going through right now, I actually feel like one of the luckier ones (I don't have to fight for toilet paper at least)."

How are the vittles there? Quality does vary from facility to facility. The best one had a menu like a restaurant and a a phone you called and ordered whatever you wanted whenever you wanted it and it tasted more like restaurant food than hospital food.

All due gratitude to Adam and the mods too. I just donated again, grateful for this site, and I'm grateful for the volunteering mods too, who, try to herd us when, on our worst days, we're not cats, but wildcats.

missmolly: "For those of you who are healthcare workers, I wish you didn't have to be heroic in the coming days, weeks, and months, but you do and thank you, thank you, thank you.

I watched this and thought of all we'll owe you. "

Each and every one of them is a hero. Not to steal the limelight, but law enforcement also deserves a thank you. My oldest son is sheriffs deputy, and now I have one more thing to worry about with his job.

Absolutely, bearpath, I curtsey to LEOs too. The only reason I didn't include them is because they've gotten much due respect in the first responder threads and hospital folks often get overlooked.

My brother works as a technician in medical device manufacturing. Him and most of the other technicians and engineers are all over 60 and all have some degree of medical issues. He doesn’t mind going into work because people need the product to maintain health. His problem is the management that stays home and puts pressure on them to work harder and faster with less. I thank those people too and the pizza guy who drops food off to people in hiding for little pay. There are some articles out there about the ethics of asking minimum wage people to risk getting the virus to do non essential work.

x2jmorris: "Some crazy stuff happening. Nothing yet at my facility but there is hypotheticals of housing staff and not letting people leave so essentially work 2 weeks straight. Paid 24 hours round the clock with OT. I would actually be down for that lol. "

Very fluid situation for sure.

Policy is changing on a day by day basis. So far we don't have any positive cases of Covid-19 on our ward. We are on lockdown, no visitors, all employees assessed at our unit door for symptoms before entering.

I would definitely prefer to stay at the hospital and work 12 hours on 12 hours off. I have supplies in the back of my car in case I need to self quarantine. I don't want to go back and forth to my family. Hard to social distance within the home with a family of 5. I'll sleep in my van at work if I have to.

We have a number of nurses on our department. I worry a lot about them in their real jobs. There is a bit of stress there. I ordered surgical masks a couple weeks ago, and yesterday I heard they were shipped. I figure they are coming from the space station cause they figured I’d basically see them in may. May 4th to the 26th was the range they gave me. (This was for our fire department not me).

This situation is the final nail in the coffin for independent small physician practices.

luft: "

x2jmorris: "Some crazy stuff happening. Nothing yet at my facility but there is hypotheticals of housing staff and not letting people leave so essentially work 2 weeks straight. Paid 24 hours round the clock with OT. I would actually be down for that lol. "

Very fluid situation for sure.


Policy is changing on a day by day basis. So far we don't have any positive cases of Covid-19 on our ward. We are on lockdown, no visitors, all employees assessed at our unit door for symptoms before entering.


I would definitely prefer to stay at the hospital and work 12 hours on 12 hours off. I have supplies in the back of my car in case I need to self quarantine. I don't want to go back and forth to my family. Hard to social distance within the home with a family of 5. I'll sleep in my van at work if I have to.


"

^See^ Heroes.

drnatus: "

This situation is the final nail in the coffin for independent small physician practices. "

I'm sad to read that, doc. Can you please explain why you believe this will happen?

missmolly: " Can you please explain why you believe this will happen?"

Since Obamacare started as a small business we have been crushed by insurance costs. I personally have had 3 nurses leave (that did not want to leave) to work at the local hospital because our insurance costs were so high. They were the main insurance provider for their families.

Being a small practice when trying to even talk to an insurance company about what they will pay us we get: 'Here is what we will pay you and you will like it.'

Medicare has some programs that will give extra reimbursement, but as you would expect the documentation and reporting requirements are so convoluted that hospital systems have full departments to work on them... not something a small office can afford.

The only time an office based doctor (not one that performs procedures) gets paid is when the patient is right there in front of them. Medicare has relaxed some telephone requirements with COVID, but even then reimbursement for phone messages is not very much. Prior to this change, no matter how much chart review, talking to concerned mothe rs late at night about their kid, working to get procedures covered by insurance, medications prescribed, medications covered, free medicines, talking to an out of state child of an elderly patient, (and this is just a short list off the top of my head) etc that we did, no payment for any of those things were ever given. Still nongovernment insurances are not paying for phone conversations, but that may TEMPORARILY change with COVID.

All this and a lot more with the sword of Damocles hanging over your head that if you make one mistake you could really hurt someone or even if there is a perceived mistake you are sued out of business. Then, even if I talk to my friends who are not docs about my concerns, I eventually get the "rich doc" comment. Yes they have seen my modest house, my 17 year old Accord, know that I take 1 vacation a year often to bwca. They have no idea that I get paid much much less than the perception of what a doctor is paid. It seems to me that all of the internet stats about doctor salaries are based upon recruiting companies or are based upon surveys. These surveys are incredibly biased... what doc wants to admit that they are paid way less than the going perception....so the docs that I know their salaries avoid those surveys.

And now very few patients are coming into the office due to COVID, so very little income is being generated.

sorry for the rant, but i am drowning and you gave me an opportunity to vent.

Man, doc, that's brutal. It reminds of the Perfect Storm when various factors converged to create a catastrophe.

Thanks for the sympathetic ear. I probably should just delete that post. No one likes to hear a doctor whine and I am grateful for all that I have been given.

I didn’t think it sounded like whining. I always say “Im not complaining I’m just explaining”. I think it’s good for us. Thanks for all you do as a healer.

drnatus: "Thanks for the sympathetic ear. I probably should just delete that post. No one likes to hear a doctor whine and I am grateful for all that I have been given. "

Not whining when you are losing your way of earning a living no matter what your job or pay scale. It is scary!

Any opportunities to work at a local hospital? Not sure if it works the same for doctors but the hospitals in my city are all looking to hire travel nurses at a VERY nice wage with other perks.

drnatus: "Thanks for the sympathetic ear. I probably should just delete that post. No one likes to hear a doctor whine and I am grateful for all that I have been given. "

I agree with the others. You're not whining. You're informing and I appreciate that.

luft: ""Any opportunities to work at a local hospital? "

My philosophy as a doctor is that I want to be able to make the best decision with the patient as my top priority. As a human being, we are all motivated by our own self interest and that is impossible to completely escape. I try to put the patient first.

When a doctor is "owned" by a hospital then there is additional pressure, mostly unspoken, but a times directly ordered to put the interest of the hospital system ahead of the patient.

Examples that a hospital administrator may have "a talk" with a doctor regarding:

How much time did you schedule for that patient (or type of visit)?

Why did you refer that patient to a specialist out of our system when we have Dr. X in the next building? (nevermind that Dr. X cannot diagnose his way out of a wet paper bag)

You are not allowed to order this procedure at Y (competing hospital system).

You must double book and see more patients, because one of your partners left. You will get no additional income, your staff will not get any bonuses even though they are working harder. (this is one of which I have recent direct knowledge)

My wifes department was shut down this week indefinately. Three of her co-workers were called in to do remote testing and they refused because the hospital couldn't provide them with proper PPE. They did not get fired and Krista said that the hospital was ok with the decison.

drnatus: "

luft: ""Any opportunities to work at a local hospital? "

My philosophy as a doctor is that I want to be able to make the best decision with the patient as my top priority. As a human being, we are all motivated by our own self interest and that is impossible to completely escape. I try to put the patient first.


When a doctor is "owned" by a hospital then there is additional pressure, mostly unspoken, but a times directly ordered to put the interest of the hospital system ahead of the patient.


Examples that a hospital administrator may have "a talk" with a doctor regarding:


How much time did you schedule for that patient (or type of visit)?


Why did you refer that patient to a specialist out of our system when we have Dr. X in the next building? (nevermind that Dr. X cannot diagnose his way out of a wet paper bag)


You are not allowed to order this procedure at Y (competing hospital system).


You must double book and see more patients, because one of your partners left. You will get no additional income, your staff will not get any bonuses even though they are working harder. (this is one of which I have recent direct knowledge) "

Doc, a big healthcare system has been buying clinics and hospitals in my area and my physician whispered how she and her colleagues hate the pressure to make money for the system over tending to their patients.