I've been thinking about the movie Denzel Washington was in.. can't think of the name but his son had to have a heart transplant and (this is what they say in the movie), they say that an HMO is a doctor who is paid by a company to hide anything serious enough to keep an employee out of work. i.e, Denzel's son in the movie had an enlarged heart that the HMO doctors never told him about until he collapsed, Are HMO's really like that? Im with one with my job... they have a list of doctors I get to pick from to go to. Whats the secret behind it?
John Q was the movie. An HMO is not really a doctor or even really an employer of doctors. Generally speaking, the HMO is more like an insurance company that contracts with a group of physicians and other heath care providers to provide services to plan members. The doctors are usually not really employees of the HMOs. I don't personally know any reputable physician who would withhold information from a patient about a medical condition, especially one that required treatment. I can see withholding treatment without a guarantee of payment (that happens), and I can see an HMO refusing to pay for certain treatments (that also happens), but the physician not telling the patient of the condition, I don't know if that really happens. For what it's worth, I don't recall in that movie that the doctors knew about the boy's heart problem and hid it. I was under the impression that they simply didn't diagnose the kid's heart issue until after he collapsed. But it's been a while since I saw the movie.
'Not usually' is correct. Sometimes the doctors are employees of the HMO, but that model is not very common. Also, as mrpaige stated, a physician withholding info on an existing condition would be very bizarre. Now, if someone was in a hospital and had already been misstreated, or died to to health system error the doctor may be compelled to withhold info due to 'peer review'. But that's clearly after the fact. As for choosing docs, good luck. Most people ask friends and family, and maybe have access to additional info on the docs like where they attended med school (stay away from Foreign Medical School Grads) , where they did their residency (and in what specialty), and whether or not they're board certified in their specilaty. Unfortunately, the customers do not have access to the database that tells us how many times a doc has been sued for malpractice.
Michael Moore did a documentary, part of which was about an HMO that was witholding approval of a kidney (?) transplant for a dying, young father. The rap on HMOs is that they tend to make care-approval decisions based on business considerations rather than medical ones. The pressure that this exposure brought upon this HMO forced them to reverse their decision and the guy got his new organ. Go Michael go!
