I appreciate Jean Toyama’s letter on HMSA exec’s pay raises (“HMSA execs’ pay raises go beyond bad optics,” Star-Advertiser, May 3). She brought up a number of specific questions that, as a local doctor, I’d like to answer. She asked:
>> “Are doctors doing what HMSA underlings used to do?” I am required to search through and input information that is often already sitting in HMSA’s claims database (its job, not mine).
>> “What about doctors compensation from insurance?” Under HMSA’s formula, no matter how much care is required, whether I see a patient two times a year or 20 times a year, I get paid the same per annum amount.
>> “Do doctors have time to use their skills for patients?” The most valuable thing to any doctor is time. There’s only one of me and hundreds of patients I need to take care of. The ever-increasing administrative burden, cost-cutting intrusions into properly managing patients and disincentives to do so, are all tearing apart our ability to truly care for patients.
If HMSA’s goal is to demoralize and deprive doctors, then maybe its leaders do deserve an executive pay raise.
Steve Dang, M.D.
Kaimuki
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