Doctors stop carrying vaccines

[Cheshire]

I keep hearing on the news (I think most recently on NPR) that many pediatricians are going to stop carrying vaccines because of the investment to purchase and store them and because most insurers don't pay enough to cover the doctors' efforts in giving them.

If this happens the news was concerned that many patients, especially in rural areas, wouldn't have easy access to vaccines. In urban areas they said it would probably fall to the health departments to provide them.

My question is, if doc's stop carrying them will they stop being so militant about making sure their patients are vaccinated???

[alegna]

I've not heard anything of the sort around here... that would be interesting...

what's the motivation to go all the time without vaxes?

-Angela

[Gitti]

I seriously doubt that will ever happen. Vaccines are their bread and butter. Since little kids 'need' so many vaccines pediatricians have sprung up all over the place. When my kids were little, there were hardly any peds. We mostly went to family practitioners and they did not push vaccines at all. They gave you an option or advised you of a new vaccine but that was about it.

[nia82]

Gitti, I just thought about what you said and it's true. When I was little we only ever went to see a ped when we were really sick. For me that was one time when I had mumps (which was no big deal - 2 weeks at home and sooo much tv, yeah, I loved it!)... We always saw a family practitioner and that was normal.

[lovbeingamommy]

Yep, me too, we saw the greatest D.O. ever (family practice) never saw a ped. I didn't even know they were a specialist until I was in h.s.

[nia82]

Oh and btw - I had mumps in 4th grade - I was 10 and the ped first joked that my entire village had mumps (yeah my entire elementary had it - everyone was fine) and he didn't think it was a big deal. None of us had the MMR shot. That's why it always was easy for me to rule out MMR!

[just_lily]

I live in Canada (Alberta) and all vaccines are given at the public health clinic. Peds are only seen if your child has some kind of condition that needs a specialist, otherwise everyone goes to a family practitioner, if they are lucky enough to find one of those even.

But... I still got reemed out by my family doc for even questioning vaccines. I stopped going to WBVs after that.

I have never heard of anyone in Canada actually being fired by their doctor. I wonder if that would go against that Canada Health Act.

[Cheshire]

Here's a couple of links:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=98743907

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2...need-shot-arm/

I don't think peds sprang up because of vaccines and $$$. I think they sprang up because medical students found that by specializing they could make a lot more $$$ with regular office visits. Just like there are a ton more ob/gyn's and geriatric specialists than when I was younger. There has also been an alarming decline in the number of docs wanting to be family doctors - so much so that communities and medical schools are concerned that there won't be enough to go around. The students cite that family docs don't make enough and work longer hours, but if they specialize they have better hours and make a lot more money. Most have HUGE student loans to repay and on a family doc's salary it takes a long time to repay and also have a life (raise a family, etc.).

For example, my regular doc charges about $100 a visit, but a short visit to the ped costs $200 or more. When we did vax our insurance company paid very little for the actual shots and for the cost of administering it.

[AFWife]

This might be slightly off topic but it's something that's come up in my daily life...

My MIL told me that in addition to having an OB present at birth you have to have a ped there to...because the OB can't check out the baby? Is that part of the reason hospital deliveries are so expensive? (I'm fairly certain I'm using a birth center...nurse midwives do everything I think) If so, why? Why do we NEED peds?

[nia82]

Mmmh nope, there was no ped at our son's birth. the hospital had the on call ped come in every morning to look at all newborns. All they did for us was checking him out, noticing his jaundice and offering the HepB shot which we declined.
At birth we only had our midwife and a nurse present.

[Belle]

Originally Posted by AFWife

This might be slightly off topic but it's something that's come up in my daily life...

My MIL told me that in addition to having an OB present at birth you have to have a ped there to...because the OB can't check out the baby? Is that part of the reason hospital deliveries are so expensive? (I'm fairly certain I'm using a birth center...nurse midwives do everything I think) If so, why? Why do we NEED peds?

No. The nurses check out the baby after the birth. A ped stops by later to go over what the nurses have already observed. I've never seen a ped at a birth that wasn't a c/s.

[CarrieMF]

I live in Canada (Alberta) and all vaccines are given at the public health clinic. Peds are only seen if your child has some kind of condition that needs a specialist, otherwise everyone goes to a family practitioner

Same here. My dr has only talked to me about vaccines once & that was after I asked him his opinion on one. i've been going to him for almost 10 years. My 3 kids go to him too.

I have never heard of anyone in Canada actually being fired by their doctor. I wonder if that would go against that Canada Health Act.

They can't technically fire, but if you have more than 1 dr they can stop giving you appointments to the one you see less often. If it's a practice where you rotate what dr you see then they probably can't. We techinically don't pay them like they do in the US.

I know my dr has patients he doesn't like but they're still his patients. A friend of mine used to go to him & his wife, the receptionists stopped booking her with him because she'd only go to him if she couldn't get in with his wife. If it's an emergency appointment then they see whoever has open emergency appointments whether it's their regular dr or not.