Paris MD Response.....7/4

Thank you Dr. "Mc Kinney-native-now-living-in-Nashville". I don't know what gives you the idea that you have any credentials whatsoever that would make anyone take you seriously!

I have practiced in Paris for over 25 years, and had offers to practice in Houston, Dallas, and New Orleans. I am not from here, so my reasons for locating here were not due to any family ties, etc. I came here because of the remarkable quality of the medical staff that I found here and the presence of two medical centers that provided over 60 years of superb medical care.(I might add that, at the time, I looked at your home town and found a Quack-run birthing center and a marginal- pass hospital that was controlled by a single physician and his cronies.) That might be behind your decision to look to Tennessee to settle, instead of coming home.

As for your assertion that Paris is dying, the demographic statistics do not support your contention. The medical drawing area is over 90,000; when I came it was 48,000 (See "Bugatti Stevenson medical demographics report august 1980, available upon request.)

What has actually happened here, my good sir, is that the Federal Balanced budget amendment of 1998 cut almost 5 million dollars of funding to the two hospitals. This set in motion a series of events that resulted first in McCuistion allying itself with Texas Health Resources(ne, Presby Dallas plus Harris Methodist Ft Worth) and then, after the Harris Methodist HMO melt down made it no longer feasible to keep McCuistion, The THR group decided to sell their interest to Christus. About the same time the out patient DRGs were implemented which further cut revenues another 3 million per year. All this together resulted in a staggering 12 million loss in one year!

You don't have the slightest idea of what you are talking about! The chicken here is the loss of federal funding in a poor rural county whose payer mix is 62% medicare/ medicaid / no pay. The egg is the drastic results: Namely a tragic loss of services and a dismal track record of attempts by various parties to live with those funding cuts.

Certainly you would not come here to practice! You are interested in being close to the $ and services that are available in Nashville and the other places that you mentioned practicing in.

Finally: How dare you call anyone an "also-Ran"? We have Drs here who trained at Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Baylor Houston, MD Anderson, Vanderbilt (I could go on...but won't)

I don't give a fig if you write your opinions on the blog; they are like a$$holes; everybody has one.

From frank:
Note: Proposed CMS changes for 2008 :

Medicare payments to physicians in 2008 will drop nearly 10% under a proposed rule issued today by the CMS, which projects it will pay $58.9 billion to 900,000 physicians and other healthcare professionals next year.

...from Modernhealthcare.com

...and the good news just keeps on coming....frank