Such schools across the country are hurting. There are a rising number of patients without insurance who seek treatment by doctors at medical schools. Managed care companies, which administer medical insurance for businesses, are getting tougher on reimbursement. And the federal government has cut what it will pay for patients receiving Medicaid coverage. Medical schools typically treat two kinds of patients.
Academic physicians get the tough cases because they are on the cutting edge of medicine.
They also treat the indigent. Academic physicians at medical schools must treat patients as part of their teaching. Despite all the recent medical advances we hear and read about, medicine is still as much an art as a science. Medical students must do hands-on, supervised treatment of the ill if they are going to learn the profession. For decades, most medical schools actually made money on their clinical work.