More Medicare Cuts for Physical Therapy in 2012

I just opened my mail today and found a pitch from PT-PAC urging me to send them $25-$1000 to keep “12 members of Congress” from including Medicare payments to all providers “especially physical therapy” in the $1.2 Trillion they have to cut from the Federal budget in the next 90 days.

Don’t get me wrong – as a consultant, who has intensely studied marketing, I recognize the pattern of their pitch – the blend of fear and urgency, the catchy creative.  I recognize it, but I don’t have to like it.

I just happened to have spent this morning doing the math.  I’ve reviewed the CBO reports that detail the state of the U.S. economy and the economic impact of increased Federal health care spending on our future prosperity.  And I’m not OK with it.  I don’t even have kids, but I think it’s crazy to mortgage the future of young people in this country to save the system we have.

We already spend more than $1 out of every $7 in total national value creation on healthcare.  And that might be OK with me if (1) we had an awesome system that actually consistently delivered health and (2) there was an end in sight to the increases in the percentage of our national resources that the “healthcare” system was consuming.  But such is far from the case.

Thanks, PT-PAC, but I think I’ll just go ahead and invest my $1000 attracting more clients who see the value of what I can do for them (and are willing to pay for it themselves) instead of paying for the current circus in Washington.

The best thing I can do for Physical Therapy right now is create and follow a blueprint that profitably improves the results actual patients get without contributing to the bureaucratic mess.  We have no business supporting the status quo.  The means is just as important as the end.