Hey Jolly

[jon-nyc]

One of the people at this conference was a woman from your neck of the woods, near Alexandria. Like many of us she came home with covid. She talked to her usual pulmonary guy, and had to tell him about Paxlovid.

Does that surprise you?

[Jolly]

I don't know all of the guys in Central Louisiana listed as pulmonologists. None of the ones I do know, would I refer you to.

[Jolly]

And branching out from my above statement a bit...We have a very serious problem in this part of the world. We have lost doctors right and left. Many due to retirement, some due to better opportunities in bigger markets.

My thoracic surgeon is now in Lafayette. My guy that treats my May-Thurman is in Lafayette. My wife's endocrinologist is in Lafayette. Her ENT is in Baton Rouge. Her hand guy is in Shreveport.

In 1980, we had a 200 bed state teaching hospital affiliated with Tulane, a 300 bed hospital ran by the Sisters of the Incarnate Word, a 400 bed hospital that was later sucked up by HCA and a 200 bed VA hospital. Now, the state hospital is gone, the HCA facility just lost their Level 2 trauma rating and the Christus facility is down to about 200 beds, IIRC.

It's because of a variety of factors...A greying local population and lower reimbursements because of Medicare, a high percentage of Medicaid patients, high medical school debt and an inability to make enough money in this market, a lack of cooperation between the private entities in the area resulting in a duplication of services where nobody makes enough money.

And...If you're from here, it's a great place to raise kids. It's boring. Hard to recruit young docs from elsewhere to move to boring.

So right now, we have a high level of mediocrity in medical care and are probably 5 years behind where we used to be.

Sadly.