Most of us would prefer a gentler, more pristine, and more scholarly College, leaving the mercantile function of medicine to others. But the need to insist on fair compensation for value delivered dates to the origins of medicine and cannot truly be separated from our need for education and scientific innovation in our mission to help our patients. Failure to receive reasonable payment for our services denigrates those very services and makes them worth less to our patients and to society. Failure to receive just compensation would eventually destroy our profession and our College scholarly activity and all. The battle to receive just compensation is not a new one, but the weapons to wage it have changed.
Few patients pay their own bills now.
Employers, insurance companies, and the government don't have the same respect for physicians that comes from sick patients themselves. Giant insurance companies merge, forcing physicians to accept whatever payment is offered. And the government, is, well, the government. But, as Dr. Charles Fisch is fond of pointing out, despite our fears and complaints about government involvement in medicine, Medicare made cardiologists prosperous. Without employers, insurance companies, and the government, we cardiologists might still be getting chickens and fresh produce as payment for our work.