mickey seger, md

medical and surgical weight loss and metabolic diseases

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

Who wants the spurs to move to Austin? If not, vote yes on prop a and b asap!! Are you watching the 👽? @spurs are too classy to threaten a move but they need to feel the love! #SanAntonio #Spurs

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@MichaelAlbertMD I’ll try. How about-It’s correlated with aging and a shortened lifespan?

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@mcuban Keep lowering the reimbursement for docs and you’ll get worse docs- best and brightest have no interest in going to school/training for 7-10 years after college amassing debt and then getting $3-400 to take out your gallbladder.

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@BrentAWilliams2 This^ it’s not a free market as it should be. Docs can’t own hospitals but hospitals can own docs. Free the MDs!

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@MichaelAlbertMD Happy for you but why would you say this? Insurance companies regularly change the algorithm without notice. it’s not feasible for small practices to keep up. Either they sell out to the hospital, the payors themselves or PE to survive. This is not real world for most

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@barth617 Congrats! Well deserved!

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@MichaelAlbertMD Wrong again mike! But I love your declarative knowledge of everyone’s mindset.

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@saloni_kar57928 @realdocspeaks @bava23 @DoctorTro Then don’t go to the hospital or talk to a doc when you’re sick. What a ridiculous comment. What if docs go on strike- what do you think happens then? Stop complaining and pay physicians what they’re worth. If someone’s ill- What’s the price of a life ?

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@MichaelAlbertMD @EricTopol Curious why it’s wada prohibited but it does nothing according to to your chart. Is it possible we don’t know everything about these?

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@BKRBusinessMin I’d suggest investing in yourself and paying for a concierge doc.

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@elonmusk Most people I think would like some respectful civil discourse and working out some compromises. I love the way you think about and operate business- I hope if you do this that it translates to life! Godspeed!

[Neil Floch MD @NeilFlochMD]

Increased risk of 13 different cancers with an elevated BMI @NEJM #obesity

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@BrentAWilliams2 I feel the nutrition teaching is medical school is generally inadequate. I’m sure there are exceptions.

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@JaimePonceMD So true! Sorry to miss this!

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@SalaryDr This is silly- private practice docs have ZERO leverage to negotiate contracts with payers. The system is rigged to push us into employment and when we accept we lose. We are the center of the point of care and we should control more of the economics.

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@MichaelAlbertMD Thanks for resigning your consulting role at Novo before posting this. Sadly, it feels like these companies are holding the patients who need treatment hostage for cash. They ran a bunch of specials for 25$ a month, got a lot of folks excited then pulled the plug.

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@TxStateBaseball @TravisRecek And the grammar

[Adam Bruggeman, MD @DrBruggeman]

CRITICAL UPDATE:

Medicine is at a crossroads. Physicians are now moving to employment over private practice due to overburdensome regulations and financial incentives to do so. Facilities can pay doctors significantly more than they make in private practice and this increased pay gap widens every day while we fail to increase payment in private practice with inflation (hospitals get inflationary updates).

All of this costs consumers more money. One example shows that Medicare pays a doctor $250 for an injection in the office in private practice but a doctor employed by their health system costs $750 for the same procedure. Given that many of these healthcare systems have insurance contracts that are 3x or more of Medicare, that gap widens dramatically.

Meanwhile, United Healthcare is continuing its meteoric rise (along with others in the health insurance sector). One profit scheme is through upcoding and cherry picking patients in the Medicare Advantage program, which is now estimated to cost taxpayers $80B annually above what it would have cost through Medicare. Much of the money to cover that $80B is coming from Medicare Part B, the fund used to pay physicians.

Dr. Oz just testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee and committed to attacking these payment schemes. Senator Cassidy referenced a bill he is working on to prevent upcoding. Others on both sides of the aisle agree that something must be done.

What do we need to do? Return that money to Medicare Part B and use those savings to pay for the permanent fix, putting physicians on par with all others in healthcare by giving them mandatory annual inflationary updates. Investing in our physicians will ultimately save the healthcare system money by encouraging more self-employed physicians.

This can all be done with our upcoming reconciliation process. Leadership in both the Senate and House have committed to doing “something” about physician pay in the reconciliation. It’s time we speak up and demand we don’t just do something…. Let’s do something BIG! Let’s fix the fee schedule once and for all. Let’s do it on the backs of insurance companies that have been stealing from American taxpayers through various Medicare Advantage schemes. Let’s invest in the future of our healthcare system by supporting small businesses (physician practices), which are the backbone of our economy.

All of this takes effort and money.

1) Support your favorite medical PAC
2) Call your Members of Congress and tell them how important these changes are

The stars have aligned to make a big change, but it only happens if EVERYONE in medicine pulls together and demands the change. Decide to be a change agent. Fight for your patients. Fight for your profession. Fight for your colleagues.

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@DrAngelaFitch I hear 3 months for new servers… yes horrible!

[mickey seger, md @mickeyseger]

@mattymclain You ok vato?