Sharisse Stephenson
@drsharisse
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Woman of many facets! Neurologist! Mom! Pet rescuer and pet lover! Crypto newbie!
Dallas, TX
Joined October 2010
Supporting healthcare workers who get traumatized on the job shouldn’t be a left vs. right issue. It’s basic fairness. Just like recognizing PTSD in veterans isn’t “partisan” — it’s common sense.
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And these ‘poor, struggling’ hospitals take all that tax-free revenue, 340B arbitrage profit, Medicaid upcharges, municipal bond advantages, and DSH/GME money… and use it to lobby HARD to protect their dominance. Not for patients. Not for access. Not for affordability. But to
Most hospitals pay no taxes and are allowed to issue municipal bonds to raise capital. They also receive higher payments from Medicaid than physicians. Then there are the special programs with huge payments such as 340B, DSH , GME and many more. They are suffering so much that
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It’s insane. Patients are surprised when they find out they have to pay more for somethings when using insurance
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It just hit me how wild this system is. Physicians can violate Stark for ordering tests at a facility they have a financial stake in… meanwhile insurers, PBMs, and pharmacies are owned by the SAME companies. They set the prices, control access, control referrals — and that’s all
Don’t forget the PBMs!
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It just hit me how wild this system is. Physicians can violate Stark for ordering tests at a facility they have a financial stake in… meanwhile insurers, PBMs, and pharmacies are owned by the SAME companies. They set the prices, control access, control referrals — and that’s all
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I hate to sound so jaded. But it just seems like our position as physicians is not important to the people who make these fundamental decisions in healthcare. Insureres, pharma , lobbyists and Hospital systems.
@rshawnm Thank you! Our position needs to be that, no matter how much transparency and uniformity is brought to the process, downcoding based on diagnoses alone is completely invalid and corrupt - it destroys the basis of the entire CPT system. This could destroy FM if not addressed.
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We should have. Easier documentation and less room for insurers to find to deny claims. But I am mot surprised that’s something AMA would not support
@rshawnm Seema Verma in the first Trump administration offered to collapse all of the E+M codes into 1-2 as part of the “Patients Over Paperwork” initiative. The AMA turned her down. We should have taken the deal.
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Not hard at all — but hospitals, insurers, and their lobbyists have zero interest in shrinking their pot of profits. There’s no incentive for them to support anything that cuts waste, overhead, or markups. Much easier to just blame “greedy doctors.”
My favourite Kentucky Doc knocks it out of the park. Reducing premiums is not that hard. And it does not require beating on patients. It does require lawmakers and business people to grow up. Excellent post Sir!
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So we finally get simplified documentation rules to make patient care smoother — and insurers respond by downcoding anyway. It’s becoming more common across payers. They’re basically undoing the entire purpose of the E/M changes with automated denials
The practice of “downcoding” has become a significant issue in recent months. The prevalence of programs aimed at utilizing automated systems to review and reduce the level of Evaluation & Management (E/M) codes submitted by family physicians has reached concerning levels for our
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Absolutely. PBMs are a huge part of this problem — driving independent pharmacies out, setting drug prices, and often being owned by the same insurers controlling coverage.
Don’t forget the PBMs!
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Exactly — the system itself drives this. Between the medicolegal landscape, fear of malpractice, and administrative pressure on employed physicians, there’s no time left for thorough histories. It becomes faster — and safer — to just order the CT.
@drsharisse @SpineNeuro Creeping standards of care make medicine more expensive Doctors bear some culpability without question But they are implicitly coerced by their legal self preservation instincts I remember a time where every headache didn’t get a ct
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My sister is an ICU nurse, and they’re constantly short-staffed while managing higher-acuity patients. This kind of change will only push an already stretched-thin nursing workforce even closer to the breaking point.
These are the professions affected by the dismantling of the Education department.
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It really is. More fees, more paperwork, and more hoops to do the same work hospitals already need. And it makes no sense when you’ve been on staff for years at the same facility. I never questioned it before — just assumed it was a necessary evil.
RECREDENTIALING IS A SCAM.
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This is what we need to do: stand up for patients. Physicians carry the responsibility for outcomes, yet so many decisions are made by everyone except the people actually caring for patients. That has to change
Docs! Tune in! Let’s blow this platform up and get the messaging out there and re-create medicine from the ground up with a focus on the patient relationship and health outcomes. It’s time to disintermediate medicine.
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Imagine if lawmakers actually asked the people who deliver care every day what patients really need. Healthcare policy would look very different if physicians were treated as the experts.
I’m sorry you all need to consult experts outside of Congress🥴 @DutchRojas @realdocspeaks @drdanchoi @GeBaiDC @HeathVeuleman
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Georgia aren’t we supposed to care about competition and reducing barriers for businesses? Especially when it directly affects patient access? Letting CON laws exist just to limit access and protect hospital monopolies is unconscionable.
Georgia calls itself pro-business, but healthcare in Georgia still requires Soviet-style permission slips to compete. You could lower insurance premiums overnight by removing CON. @SenatorWarnock
@ossoff
@RepMTG
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It’s frightening. We depend on regulators like the FDA to protect people, not companies. To let this go on for 44 years — “studying” cancer risk while J&J kept selling — is beyond unacceptable. That level of complicity is horrid.
The FDA helped Johnson & Johnson cover up that their baby powder caused cancer for 44 years, finally making a proposed ruling in 2024 After J&J faced over 62,000 lawsuits the finally changed their formula in 2020 “Johnson & Johnson baby powder, they go to the FDA, and they say,
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Today’s hearing to Ban insider trading was for show. We got news that they are marking up and bring to the floor a water down version with no teeth. Unacceptable.
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True. The actual services are inexpensive. It’s when they get absorbed into the hospital–insurance machine that the prices skyrocket. Complex billing, admin bloat, and opaque pricing take something affordable and turn it into a financial burden.
Labs and drugs are too cheap to insure. You should have a catastrophic plan for rare events that you can’t afford.
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I called to check on her yesterday. She broke down in tears and the new attending in me got scared something was wrong but they were happy tears. She was just so glad to finally have her surgery and be told all of her visible endometriosis was removed. Brb, my eyes are watering.
I performed an excision of endometriosis today for a patient with severe pain. The surgery went great. It was my first case as the attending surgeon and I can’t help but feel blessed that these women trust me with their health. Feeling grateful. Feeling fulfilled.
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It’s a popular myth that physicians are driving up healthcare costs. Meanwhile hospital systems, insurers, and pharma report record profits. Physicians are being pushed out of independent practice, salaries have barely moved, and reimbursement rates haven’t increased in years.
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