As a patient where do you rate in this approach?

/begin
From: THE AUSTRALIAN  September 10, 2005

Doctors' orders: learn to get rich
From:  
By Adam Cresswell
September 10, 2005


A DOCTORS' college is under fire for accrediting as part of its
education program movie screenings and a "wealth-creation" seminar
that teaches GPs about investments, how to maximise their profits and
even hide their assets from patients who may try to sue them.
Several GPs yesterday attacked as "disgraceful" and "totally
inappropriate" the decision by the Royal Australian College of General
Practitioners to allocate points to the wealth-creation seminar as
part of its Continuing Professional Development scheme.

Doctors who meet points targets under the scheme are eligible for
higher payments from Medicare. The program is intended to ensure
doctors' medical knowledge remains up to date and its aim is to
"improve the quality of care they (GPs) provide to patients".

But even some members of the RACGP board are unhappy about the
decision to give 30 points - almost one-quarter of the three-year
target - to the seminar, which has already been staged in Sydney and
Melbourne and is to be held in Brisbane today.

Topics addressed include investing for GPs, how to improve practice
profits, financial help for children and asset protection strategies.

Doctors have also been awarded points for watching the Australian film
Look Both Ways and for completing a questionnaire afterwards. A key
theme of the film is breaking bad news to patients.

Advertisement:

The RACGP, the GP newspaper Australian Doctor which organised the
seminar, and even federal Health Minister Tony Abbott yesterday
defended the decision to award the event CPD points. The RACGP said it
"does not focus on wealth- creation strategies, rather it focuses on
building competence in practice management".

But South Australian GP James Moxham said the points for the seminar
were "disgraceful".

"It's possible to get all your points by going to drug-company-funded
dinners, and you can fall asleep before the main speaker and you will
still get your points," he said.

"It really does highlight some serious flaws in the system, which
ought to be addressed."

Another GP said he was "not alone in my profession in being appalled
by this abuse of the system".

GPs must earn 130 points under the CPD scheme every three years, by
attending a variety of conferences and other education meetings on
different topics.

The wealth seminar was allocated 30 points and the movie screening and
questionnaire were allocated six points.

To earn the points, GPs attending the seminar have to demonstrate they
have spent at least one hour studying the relevance of the event to
their own practices, and to complete a "reinforcing activity"
afterwards.

GPs who fail to amass 130 points can still practise, but risk being
kicked off the list of "recognised GPs" who get higher Medicare
rebates. A bulk-billing GP can earn $30.85 from Medicare for a
consultation of up to 20 minutes, whereas the payment is only $21 for
a GP who has not met the CPD requirements.

Mr Abbott said GPs had to acquire a lot of business knowledge and the
wealth seminar "appears to focus on running a quality general
practice".

Australian Doctor sales and marketing manager Tim Young said topics
covered would include the tax advantages to GPs of employing other
healthcare workers such as physiotherapists and nurses within their
practices - moves that would benefit patient care.

"It's important that GPs are able to look after their finances in a
way that avoids them being stressed about financial issues, when they
have a lot of things they need to be concerned about - like patients'
welfare," he said.

"The financial seminar we are running is one of a series of seven
seminars and the other six focus entirely on clinical content."
/end

NB: CC has a buddy that's a Financial Adviser who'll steer some of
these in the right direction. CC gets a finder's FEE :)


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