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Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

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Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that’s exactly how unfettered “free market” capitalism operates. The end game is big companies end up controlling everything, including the regulations in order to tip the scales in their favor.

Regulatory capture is the issue that needs to be solved. Not free markets. Free markets are the most efficient way for information to be transferred throughout the system. Stricter campaign finance laws, ending revolving-door politics, etc. But putting the blame on free markets seems like a mistake.

Wait, wait, wait--you're saying that we need to solve issues like regulatory capture through legislation... so that we can have a market without governmental interference (aka a "free market")? Huh?

You can't on the one hand tout the "free market", while on the other complain that we don't have the "right" kind of governmental interference.

Even if you could square that circle, it still sounds disingenuous to argue that we could have the most efficient system if only we were to eliminate _thing that said system actively encourages_. The failure is baked into the game, my friend.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#352
post #17

While it's anecdote, every single peer in bedside medical care I know without exception has either left the field, or has immediate plans to as soon as student loan debt is repaid. The few older medical professionals in my family are simply sticking out the last few years until they can retire early. This was generally the case prior to pandemic due to how poor the work environment has become, but the pandemic seems…

Insurance companies. Everything is controlled by insurance companies. You can’t do anything unless it’s exactly how insurance wants and only for what insurance will pay. It limits everything, including how every profession can be compensated simply because you can’t easily hire somebody for more than what insurance will pay for their services. You can, but the funds have to come from somewhere.

It is definetely a (big) part of the reason, but if it was the only one, things wouldn't be in a similarly terrible situation in other countries. Take the UK as an example which has a single-payer system, and morale is overall really low, too, and nursing isn't an enticing career. (On a side-note, the BBC show "This is going to hurt" is quite good and on topic)

Apart from administrators and insurers, I think a large problem is that the job has become substantially more difficult and technology intense, while support and pay hasn't kept pace. At the same time, liability is more serious these days, which I don't think is a bad thing, but certainly sucks for the workers who have to constantly justify themselves and can get crucified for mistakes.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#353
post #250
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance is the only industry where they agree to pay for something (in this case, "medical care"), but then after service has been rendered can decide to pay less, or not pay at all, or stop paying that provider altogether, etc. This combined with hospitals being run by non-physicians*, and people thinking being able to Google and read WebMD qualifies them to argue with their doctor about treatment plans**, healthc…

> * I strongly believe that only physicians should be running hospitals. Certainly not administrators whose only education is an MHA and only experience is working for for-profit health companies. The skills need to run a hospital are quite different than those required to be a doctor. I'm not saying hospitals aren't unique - I believe they are and their adminstration is highly specialized. Doctors should inform the…

It should still be doctors. Just makes administration a career path that a doctor can choose to move into. There would be plenty of takers from the ranks of those burnt out on patient care. They could even find new meaning in being able to help people without going through the bedside wringer. If professional administrators have a place in the system it’s in positions under experienced physicians where they can help with implementation of policy, not shape it.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#354
Nurses is a tough profession. They are required to work for longer hours and not paid that much. With Covid, dealing with anti-science patients must have been very draining mentally. On top of changing the working conditions and increasing pay, may be we should make the nurses training free to make the field more attractive.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#355
post #17

While it's anecdote, every single peer in bedside medical care I know without exception has either left the field, or has immediate plans to as soon as student loan debt is repaid. The few older medical professionals in my family are simply sticking out the last few years until they can retire early. This was generally the case prior to pandemic due to how poor the work environment has become, but the pandemic seems…

Insurance companies. Everything is controlled by insurance companies. You can’t do anything unless it’s exactly how insurance wants and only for what insurance will pay. It limits everything, including how every profession can be compensated simply because you can’t easily hire somebody for more than what insurance will pay for their services. You can, but the funds have to come from somewhere.

> You can’t do anything unless it’s exactly how insurance wants and only for what insurance will pay.

This is the part that makes the whole experience so sadly ridiculous. Nobody could ever tell patients what something might cost and let them make choices, it was (and is) "Sign here to acknowledge you'll ultimately be responsible for all charges, no matter what they turn out to be." But the insurance company doesn't operate like that, they say "Want to be part of our network? Guess what, you have to ask us for permission or we just won't pay you."

We need to rip off the bandaid, as it were, and reboot the damn system. Pick one of any number of good examples from other modern industrialized nations that have functioning healthcare, and copy it. Yes, everything will be a zoo for a while. We'll survive, and maybe even come out the other side with a better system. And maybe some bankrupt insurance companies, let me find my handkerchief.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#356
post #17

While it's anecdote, every single peer in bedside medical care I know without exception has either left the field, or has immediate plans to as soon as student loan debt is repaid. The few older medical professionals in my family are simply sticking out the last few years until they can retire early. This was generally the case prior to pandemic due to how poor the work environment has become, but the pandemic seems…

> How doctors of all professions lost their professional agency to do-nothing administrators within a generation is quite puzzling and a bit terrifying to me.

Same thing with professors.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#357
post #186
post #17

While it's anecdote, every single peer in bedside medical care I know without exception has either left the field, or has immediate plans to as soon as student loan debt is repaid. The few older medical professionals in my family are simply sticking out the last few years until they can retire early. This was generally the case prior to pandemic due to how poor the work environment has become, but the pandemic seems…

Having worked in Tech for many years at corporations large and small, I have seen companies run by Founders, by Sales, by Marketing, by Finance, by Engineering, and by Legal. Each had their plusses an minuses. Until I saw hospital nursing, I had never seen a company run by HR. Every decision starts and ends with HR. From hiring, to wages, to discipline and promotion, to IT and pay-roll, to reorganization and spending…

If you follow the history of HR departments in a lot of modern corporations you often see them operating as private in-house legal firms, and aggressively expanding their purview to include even actions at the executive level. The only thing most HR departments look out for is HR. Everything they do resolves around continuing or expanding the power of the HR department.

Your comment on lack of leadership is spot on. No one wants to be accountable. Instead HR departments put in place bureaucracy that works to deny individual fallibility in the name of a "system of human resource management". They want to treat people like a cog in a machine instead of as people.

Re: Report: 90% of nurses considering leaving the profession in the next year

#360
post #339
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insurance is the only industry where they agree to pay for something (in this case, "medical care"), but then after service has been rendered can decide to pay less, or not pay at all, or stop paying that provider altogether, etc. This combined with hospitals being run by non-physicians*, and people thinking being able to Google and read WebMD qualifies them to argue with their doctor about treatment plans**, healthc…

> people thinking being able to Google and read WebMD qualifies them to argue with their doctor about treatment plans In my experience, I have had: 1. Doctors that know nothing about a really basic ailment and not have any meaningful guidance or treatment to suggest 2. Doctors that Google something literally in front of me, things that I have already Googled myself, and draw the wrong conclusion because they're looki…

Indeed, there have been mutiple instances where, if I had not put my foot down,i would be left untreated and undiagnosed.

Doctors are not like other proffeshions, they cannot put things right if the opportunity for treatment is missed

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