The letter below was written by Kristin S. Held, MD and directed to Aetna Insurance. You can read more of her insights into the current state of our health care system at her
blog site. It offers lots of information from someone who is actually a part of the system and not a politician catering for money and votes.
January 30, 2014
Dear Mr. Bertolini,
With a deep sense of sadness, I must inform you that I will no longer
serve as a physician for Aetna patients under the terms of our
contractual agreement, which you most recently unilaterally changed.
I have been privileged and honored to care for thousands of patients
covered by Aetna policies since the 1990’s. I have devoted my life to
providing the very best, state-of-the-art care to these individuals. We
have formed a patient-doctor relationship, which I hope many will chose
to continue in spite of my severing ties with Aetna. You see, health
insurance has evolved such that insurers and government have inserted
themselves smack-dab in the middle of the once sacred patient-doctor
relationship. I am called a provider- not a doctor. My patient is now
yours- not mine. What I can do as a physician now has strangulating
strings and nonsensical numbers attached- to you and government and
money-not the best interests of the patients.
Obamacare, the “law of the land”, contains
ever-changing-at-the-whim-of-HHS, politically-expedient mandates,
rewards, penalties, rules and regulations with which I cannot rationally
or morally treat my patients and run a practice, much-less interpret,
implement, or comply.
Millions of Americans have lost coverage because of the healthcare
law and must now shop on a defective, insecure government website and
sign up for more expensive policies through Federal and State exchanges.
Only by logging in as a prospective patient did my office manager and I
discover that Aetna was selling plans for which I am a
provider-effectively selling my services without even asking, much less
informing me that my services would be sold on such a site, under the
auspices of new terms with which I will not comply.
Then, after the fact, I received a form letter informing me of
Aetna’s “new allowables”. I will not sell my services under such terms.
While treated as such, patients and doctors are not commodities worthy
of such impersonal, inconsiderate, and cavalier treatment. We choose
dignity and personal service over disrespect and form letters.
So here we are, you are getting new business offering health
insurance plans featuring my services without my consent under terms
which are unacceptable to me. Accept this as my official written notice
that the changes that you have unilaterally made to our contract are
unacceptable to me and make our contract null and void. You must
explain this to your patients. You must tell them that they have
purchased a product that was misrepresented to them and that you cannot
deliver. It saddens me to think of the decreased access to care from
actual physicians and the shockingly increased costs Aetna patients will
now experience because of your choice to collude with big government
rather than collaborate with patients and physicians.
Kristin S. Held, MD
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