The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-05-12
HELPING the Sick

Increasing cost Of medical enlists the atten
ton OF professional physicians medical and socioog-
cal foundations and alert lay writer's Plans for state
medicine and for guilds Of doctors to equalize expense
have been proposed in recent monrns. Convention
ally minded physicians have fought back lercey and
demanded to be let alone.
The whole matter OF foundations and medical
care is discussed with frankness by DR.. Samuel ].
Kopetzky former president Of the Medical Society Of
the County Of New York.
He emphasizes the danger Of Standardization and
routine in institutional control of medicine He
tends that high degree Of individuality originality
and independence is necessary to the most efficient
activity Of the practitioner.
Further, if the physician suffers economic injury
through competition with endowed medical service it
reduces the time and attention which he can give
to the free medical care of those unable to pay any
fee at all.
All Of this is open to argument, and should be
read in connection with Evans Carks article in the
Atlantic Monthly Of October, 1880. But on one point
Dr. Lopezky makes a real contribution. He calls at
tenon the undoubted fact that the greatest bur
den in medical care today is not the physicians or
surgeons fees but the charge for hospital service
Here then, is the place for the foundation to get
busy with their endowed resources. Standardization
and uniformity Of the proper type here is adj
vantage and financial contributions will not under
mine the income and morale Of the independent
practitioner.
"As matter OF fact, it repeatedly has been dem
onstrated and all of the observations of the commit
tee the cost Of medical care to date tend to prove
that the physicians charges are by no means the
major portion Of the economic burden imposed by
illness
'"The average middle class worker is able to meet
the expenses arising from illness requiring home
or ambulatory treatment.
It is when disqualification and extensive nursing
are required that illness imposes unbearabe bur
den on the middle class. The disease in this case
suggests it's remedy. If hospital costs we're
duced unnecessary laboratory tests abolished and
adequate nursing made available at q price within
his means the middle class patient no longer would
face economic as well as personal disaster with the
advent OF illness.
Under the present system with hospital and
nursing charges fixed the physician is the only one
who tempers his fee to the individual case. Would
not the foundations make vastly practical contri-
button to medical if they exerted their consid-
cradle influence to reduce unnecessary overhead and
employed their resources to lessen the costs Of hos
pitalization to the middle class?
There are a number of ways in which this could
be done. Funds could be established in grade "a"
institutions to assume part Of the hospital nursing
and laboratory charges to patients within specified
income groups; increased contributions to the hos
ptal whole could be employed to reduce fees to
the entire public.
Whatever the method decided on here is field
in which the foundations could render direct and
effective assistance to the middle class when its need
is urgent"
The doctors exhortaton well may be followed.
Medical treatment demanding hospital care is the
nightmare of all save the extremely rich, who
afford anything, and the very poor, who make the
best Of charity wards. In relieving this situation
the foundation can do only coed.