The coming medical apocalypse

Is there a medical apocalypse in our future? Will it happen soon? No one can say for sure, but five ominous trends suggest that a medical meltdown could occur at any time. These trends are: (1) The practice of providing medical care becoming too complex from both a business and a legal perspective; (2) Less money being spent on medical care without any corresponding reduction in services provided, creating long-term operating deficits; (3) Investor-owned, for-profit corporations changing the focus of medicine by putting shareholder concerns ahead of patient care; (4) Employment-linked health care insurance creating a growing uninsured population, adding extra financial stress to our hospitals; and, (5) Providers losing faith in their future and becoming increasingly demoralized about practicing the healing arts. These dangerous trends are considered, along with some suggestions that physician executives and organizations might take to protect themselves.