The bureaucracy also forces physicians to think only in terms of black and white when making a medical diagnosis. The fact of the matter is, however, that medicine has many shades of gray. We don't always know what the diagnosis is after the first encounter with the patient. The Medicare bureaucracy thus promotes medical inaccuracy by encouraging the coding of erroneous diagnoses. The Medicare bureaucracy has also bastardized the CPT coding system physicians are required to use to code for the services that are provided to patients.
Physicians call it fraud.
An Abuse of Power. Last but not least, consider the current fraud and abuse situation. HCFA now operates a system that is so complex and has so many regulations that any physician in this country could be singled out at any time and found to be in violation of some Medicare rule, regulation, or guideline. Let me be specific. In August 1999, Dr. Robert Gervais, a cataract surgeon practicing in Arizona, was invited to a public meeting on a HCFA project.