Fed up with stupid doctors.

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OK- you got me. I have no clue what those things are (419, p2s...).
I am in a national system called ChexSystem for having bounced a few of my own checks back about 12 years ago. I am still in ChexSystem and unable to open an account (which is why I don't have any) at any bank. This precludes me from getting debit/credit cards (short of pre-paid). This also precludes me from opening any lines of unsecured credit.
I am also unable to apply for any job which requires a background check as well as a financial background check.
Trust me- I do know what I'm talking about every once in a while.

Fine:

You are RIGHT.
I am WRONG.
I was simply lying to get attention .

Is that better?

That explains everything. And there I was thinking you were just being argumentative for the sake of it.

Misdiagnosis rates for emergency rooms--mostly PHYSICAL problems. Psychological misdiagnosis rates are almost certainly higher because psychological problems are not as easily defined and do not usually have biological tests.

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/intro/common.htm

Was not the original post about a doctor asking to see various details to prove/disprove and imaginary business? Regardless of who is legally allowed to look at anything, is a doctor really the best person to be examining financial records?

Are you saying that "most" physical problems are misdiagnosed?
Even your source was vague at best:

"Although there is a general feeling that misdiagnosis is quite common, with many people giving anecdotal accounts of their own experiences, it is difficult to get exact data."

and

"Loosely interpreting these facts gives a range of 8% to 42% rate for misdiagnoses."

8 to 42?! That is one helluva margin for error, eh?
Seriously though, having worked in a hospital (Human Resources) the instances of reported misdiagnosis were less than 1% for ER, ICU and NICU. Keep in mind that many hospitals are regulated by federal and state agencies (like the Joint Commission) just so that they can keep their doors open. Does it make sense that any hospital could keep their operating license with an 8% (much less 42%) misdiagnosis rate? There is simply no way!
What the article and this thread suggests is a world-wide conspiracy on behalf of all healthcare workers to keep misdiagnosis' from being reported thereby negating the integrity of every single person who works in healthcare, from housekeeping to pharm-techs.
It is widely known that a patient being admitted into a hospital will receive some sort of care from as many as a dozen HC professionals in any given day: Nurses, nurses aid/asst, housekeeping, pharm-techs, clinical lab scientists, phlebos, x-techs, sonic-techs, rad-techs, nutritional services, billing, med-record maintenance, not to mention doctors and specialists (when needed).
Each of these areas report to different agencies, different managers. There is simply no way they could all conspire to hide errors since most of them have the same access to med-records while the patient is under their care.

Yes, mistakes happen. Doctors and nurses are people- just like you and I. They work long shifts (our ICU RNs work 13 hour shifts as per CNA guidelines).
Mistakes happen more than ANY HC professional wants.
But they happen far, far less than many want to believe.

Yeah, your margin comes from people saying "the doctor messed up" 40% of the time, and explicitly saying "he misdiagnosed me" 8% of the time. That's people reporting what their doctors did, rather than an official investigation.

Scroll down; the rest of the article is a bit more interesting. Specifically, check out the "autopsy" section.

Psych cases are the same way--"difficult and often multifactorial". Unfortunately "as high as 40%" is the only figure they give.

I'm pretty sure that general practitioners and doctors who work in hospital wards rather than emergency rooms have better rates--maybe something like the 8% near the top. (But note that if the treatment does no harm and the condition resolves by itself, the misdiagnosis may never be detected--for example, misdiagnosing flu as a bacterial infection and giving antibiotics.) But psychology is very fuzzy; it depends on perceptions; and it's WAY newer as a science than physical medicine. I bet the rate with psychology is right up there with the ICU diagnoses... I know that of the ones I've received, the majority were wrong.

Unfortunately it is much easier to come by statistics on medical error than on misdiagnosis specifically; and even then there is no stable system for reporting medical errors. The only statistic I see repeatedly and with any consistency is the mortality rate--one to three hundred thousand per year.

Deliberate or not, most doctors decisions made in a hospital are liable to come under effective peer review. GPs working alone from an office, not so much.

Hmm, yes. Of course peer review is subject to peer pressure... I wonder to what extent that has an effect? I mean, doctors are human too and would prefer not to have somebody practicing medicine who was incompetent, even if he were a friend; but small mistakes might be let slip easily enough.

I think that's why all the stuff I could find kept centering around mortality; when you've got a dead body due to a medical mistake, it's kind of hard to deny that something went wrong.

It has been my life experience that most 'experts' in any field are usually only marginal with respect to their actual understanding and expertise in their particular fields of study. Perhaps one might find maybe one out of a thousand 'experts' who actually knows something important. The remainder are just 'paper-holders' with an office.

Based on the Department of Labor and Statistics, there are approximately 210,600 primary care physicians and almost 500,000 specialty practicioners. Based on that you believe there are only 710 qualified doctors in the whole country?

Just curious...

Probably less in fact.

I think you're confusing "competent" with "exceptional".

As a analogy to the doctor ratio thing think about how many certified profession mechanics there are, around 1.5 million with years of highly technical factory training. Now how many actually build race winning motors. The answer is around 12 out of this total number.
Who do want as your doctor or mechanic? One of the 'masses' or one who gets the job done?

Seriously?

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around that kind of belief.
Think of it, with the bulk of doctors being in larger cities (LA, SF, NY, etc) your logic dictates that there may be entire cities without one qualified doctor in them.
That totally doesn't make sense to me.

As a person without health insurance I'm not in a position to be picky about who provides me medical care.
I already owe more than $200k in medical bills, I'm hoping not to add to that in the near future.

Just because all mechanics don't build racecars doesn't make them less qualified to work on my car.