Florida to allow doctors to perform C-sections outside hospitals

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NBC News

May 26, 2024, 7:00 AM EDT


Florida has become the first state to allow doctors to perform cesarean sections outside of hospitals, siding with a private equity-owned physicians group that says the change will lower costs and give pregnant women the homier birthing atmosphere that many desire.

But the hospital industry and the nation’s leading obstetricians’ association say that even though some Florida hospitals have closed their maternity wards in recent years, performing C-sections in doctor-run clinics will increase the risks for women and babies when complications arise.

“A pregnant patient that is considered low-risk in one moment can suddenly need lifesaving care in the next,” Cole Greves, an Orlando perinatologist who chairs the Florida chapter of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in an email to KFF Health News. The new birth clinics, “even with increased regulation, cannot guarantee the level of safety patients would receive within a hospital.”

The Florida Legislature this spring passed a law allowing “advanced birth centers,” where physicians can deliver babies vaginally or by C-section to women deemed at low risk of complications. Women would be able to stay overnight at the clinics. Women’s Care Enterprises, a private equity-owned physicians group with locations mostly in Florida along with California and Kentucky, lobbied the state legislature to make the change. BC Partners, a London-based investment firm, bought Women’s Care in 2020.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/womens-health/florida-allow-doctors-perform-c-sections-hospitals-rcna153903

[Tetrachloride]

1. what about on cruise ships and in casinos

[Cherokee100]

20. Good idea

That way, Big Medical could start laying odds, on whether the mother and baby survive. It would give them another revenue stream. Got to love the Capitalistic system(sarcasm).

[SoFlaBro]

34. How about a really, really clean, nice hotel room? Like the junior suite at the Marriott freshly fucking serviced?

[sakabatou]

2. Right, because clinics will have ALL the tools and staff when something goes wrong

[RandomNumbers]

15. Hey, as long as they can take care of the precious baby

It's not like they care one whit what happens to the person giving birth to that baby.

[Warpy]

23. Right, one the baby is out, the woman is just an empty shell and can be discarded

She hemorrhaged and needs massive transfusion? Well, I guess it sucks to be her, at least we kept the costs down.

[Tansy_Gold]

41. You took the words right out of my fingers

As soon as you see the words "private equity," you know it's gonna be about nothing but the bottom line. Nothing else matters. N O T H I N G.

And if anything goes wrong, it will be the pregnant person's fault. . . . . . . .

[MOMFUDSKI]

3. Kitchen tables?

Let’s use our imagination here.

[marble falls]

4. I don't play a TV doctor, but I did sit in on the caesarean delivery of my two daughters, within five feet with an ...

... unobstructed view. It's was the best "special effect" I've ever seen before or since. There was team of five or six working together. This was in the mid eighties. I've had out patient procedures for my cancer I'd never have believed did not require staying a couple of days.

But, I just can't believe caesareans are so perfected that it would be an outpatient procedure outside a hospital. Especially since a huge proportion of them are an effort to prevent liability in a difficult natural delivery. But what do I know? I'm wrong a lot. And I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.

[Sailingdiver]

8. private equity pays to differ...

You can bet no one invested in these clinics will avail themselves or their families to the services.

[marble falls]

44. Bingo.

[LeftInTX]

13. I've watched a few and they make me feel like I'm gonna faint

I was a newborn nurse and we would go catch a few deliveries now and then. I don't know why they made me feel like that....

[LudwigPastorius]

5. In a related story,...

the Florida legislature has just passed a law declaring that women shall be known henceforth as "Fetal Incubation Units".

[Scrivener7]

6. Next up: Florida encourages use of rusty knives for home C-Sections in the

proposed law called the "Women are just rib growths anyway, and shouldn't be taking up hospital resources" Act.

[greatauntoftriplets]

7. Are they crazy?

My niece required multiple transfusions after heavy bleeding during a C-section. Would they have adequate blood on hand for emergencies like this?

[sop]

29. Yes, they are crazy.

[Turbineguy]

9. In the parking lot.

Be sure to duck out and feed the parking meter!

[dembotoz]

10. may i suggest a lobotomy on gov ron....I got a power drill from sears

I think it still works

better add this or i will get in trouble

[erronis]

40. What size bit? Lots of little ones or one big one?

Of course with his pea-brain, I think just a 3" circular would do wonders.

[50 Shades Of Blue]

11. UNFUCKINGBELIEVABLE!

[GB_RN]

12. Oh, For...

Last edited Mon May 27, 2024, 05:31 AM - Edit history (3)

Fuck’s sake. 🤦?♂️

OK, as a healthcare professional, I’m going to tackle this one piece at a time.

First, when has private equity EVER been good for the consumer? Bottom line, profits, which have to be increasing year over year, are ALL that fucking well matter to investment buzzards and bean counters. Patients and employees are dead fucking last and it’s a competition to see who these guys hate more. As a close example for what these for-profit bastards will do, look at the Medicare fraud committed by Columbia/HCA when Rick Scott (Q-Dickhead) was running the show. And here are stories about a hospital that HCA purchased in western NC just a few years ago: HCA pruned staff, reaped profits. The feds have popped HCA’s Mission Hospital for violating emergency treatment standards (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act). This happens at many other hospitals they own, too. And the NC Attorney General has been joined by Buncombe County in his lawsuit against HCA Mission Health for failure to meet quality and access agreements it made with the North Carolina in order to secure its (no bid) purchase in 2019.

Second, this is asking…no…begging for patient disasters and deaths. When some incompetent fuckstick screws up and a woman bleeds to death or is severely injured, who pays? Not the company. I guarantee you they will have, buried somewhere in the paperwork you sign, a max liability (this happened to my uncle and private orthopedic surgery outfit. He’s crippled and all he got, after fees is about $1.5 million. That won’t cover his medical expenses going forward, lost income, etc.). No lawyer can help you because you signed the paperwork acknowledging the max liability payout and you’ll be told that it’s not the fault of the medical provider that you didn’t read all 9000 lines of legalese that are printed in a 1 point* size font. Not that you’d have even understood the legalese even if it was printed in an 84 point, though.

Goddamn, this is stupid.

*I’m being sarcastic here…but only slightly.

[pnwmom]

14. The average hospital stay after a C-section is 2-4 days, but these women can only stay overnight.

How many deaths at home, from things like strokes and bleeding out, will they require before they decide that women need to be cared for after a c-section after all?

"The average hospital stay after a C-section is 2 to 4 days, and keep in mind recovery often takes longer than it would from a vaginal birth."

https://www.mountsinai.org/health-library/discharge-instructions/going-home-after-a-c-section#:~:text=The%20average%20hospital%20stay%20after,too%20as%20recovery%20takes%20place

[pnwmom]

16. And this will just cause more Florida hospital maternity wards to be closed,

as the presumably uncomplicated C-sections get sucked into the "homey" for-profit birthing centers.

[surrealAmerican]

17. Which other types of major surgery will they be allowing outside of hospitals?

?

[erronis]

42. I'm guessing neurosurgery will be next - high costs and high payouts.

And if the patient doesn't survive the slip of the scalpel while lying in his home bed, doubt that the patient will sue.

Old lawyers joke: If you run over someone and don't kill them, back up and make sure they're gone. Won't sue.

[elias7]

18. These groups have a greed quotient like hedge funds, which many of them are

Small independent doctor groups or hospital employee doctor groups for the most part have been overtaken by these for profit financial groups.

Maximizing billing and collections is inherent to their business model and they are able to be ruthless because they're not local.

Some legislatures have worked to prevent "surprise billing", where you're in network hospital charges you out of network fees because the ER doc that treated you was from out of the area.

[Wonder Why]

19. Knowing Florida, they'll probably require arbitration instead of lawsuits if something goes wrong.

[sop]

31. Florida's Medical Malpractice Statute already requires mandatory mediation.

https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2021/Chapter766/All

[erronis]

43. From my experience with mediation - it's all who gets to choose the mediator.

And I don't trust most/any of them any more than I'll trust an ambulance chaser.

[ZonkerHarris]

21. what could go wrong? More profit is the important thing here!

[flashman13]

22. Another example of capitalism at its best.

[likesmountains 52]

24. Retired NICU RN here..

Aside from all the possible complications, please consider the poor patient. She has been pregnant for 9 months, probably exhausted, maybe just had a long unsuccessful labor and winds up with an emergency C-Section. Then, she (lucky her!) gets to spend one night in the birth center and get sent home with a newborn to take care of while recovering from surgery and sudden hormonal shifts. On top of that, she's going to be sleep deprived. The whole system sucks and does nothing to support new families.

[littlemissmartypants]

27. We haven't taken care of children, women and families in this country for a long time.

Child care costs now are commensurate with the cost of college. People working two and three jobs to survive while the children may or may not be cared for if you can find childcare.

And it's clearly just going to get worse if we don't do more as citizens to identify solutions, educate voters and make corrections through legislation.

No wonder our young people don't want to start families. Can we blame them?

It makes me sad every damn day.

[Traurigkeit]

36. The United States Federal government and state and local governments have never.

All due to our friendly neighborhood bastards, The Republican Party.

Time to kill off these scumbags

[Lonestarblue]

25. Private equity should be outlawed for healthcare.

Their business model is to strip assets, have minimal staff to control costs, and when the profits are not outrageous enough sell what is left.

A private equity hospital chain is being kicked out of Massachusetts because the owners bought expensive jet planes to ferry investors and top managers all over the world instead of paying their bills. The state finally learned about the lack of equipment in the hospitals when a pregnant patient died after delivery because the equipment needed to save her life had been repossessed for nonpayment of the lease. Hers was a normal delivery but complications got serious very quickly, and she died. Private equity is just another form of rapacious capitalism, but one where people can die.

[Bristlecone]

26. Down at the beach seems like a good spot

[littlemissmartypants]

28. Watch for the explosion of shady doctors with dead women and newborn babies.

Greed kills.

[SunSeeker]

38. FL already has a maternal mortality rate that's double CA's.

As of November 2023, Florida's maternal mortality rate is 23.5 deaths per 100,000 births. https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-have-the-highest-maternal-mortality-rates/#:~:text=Mississippi%20had%20the%20highest%20maternal%20mortality%20rate%20in%202021%2C%20with,not%20available%20for%20all%20states.

[littlemissmartypants]

46. That's going to rise. What about newborn deaths? Did you see any data on that?

I haven't looked. Probably won't. I'm already too depressed right now. I wouldn't be doing myself any favors.

But thanks for your reply, SunSeeker.

❤️

[Raven123]

30. Requiring a c-section automatically removes a patient from the low risk category

[Traurigkeit]

32. Republicans REALLY want women to die !

[GreenWave]

33. I hear tell alligators co-sponsored this measure.

Nothing like placental mass to perk up their appetites.

[Dem2theMax]

35. 'siding with a private equity-owned physicians group.'

That's all you need to know. Profit. It's probably trickling upwards, towards those who voted for this.

[Traurigkeit]

37. Damn MBAs

[usaf-vet]

39. In my eariler years I was a military surgical scrub tech. Over the 4 years I was on active duty I scrub on the average..

...of one a month. That does not make me an expert, but I know this suggestion is f***ing nuts.

All the C-sections that went well without a hitch for the mother or the baby were a pleasure for staff and patients to experience. Everyone in the room had a job to do and no spare time to take on other responsibilities. Most, if not all, were "emergency" C-sections. Most of those were after hours, often late into the night. By definition, it was the call-back staff that was often limited in numbers.

Scheduled C-sections were performed during the daytime hours if and when an emergency occurred; other doctors, nurses, and scrub staff were always a call away.

But at night, with limited staff, when one went wrong, it was often "touch and go"; there was never enough staff to tend to the mother and the baby when those emergencies occurred. Never enough blood and other needed supplies were often at the tipping point, with no one to spare to run for help or supplies.

These political nut jobs who are given the job to solve a complex problem rarely have the expertise to consider the consequences of their decisions. In this political environment, their one and only concern is party loyalty, followed by how we can enrich ourselves.

[lark]

45. God damn it, so it looks like if my daughter gets pregnant, she will need to leave the state to deliver - just in case.

I nearly died with my 1st pregnancy, and coded on the table the 2nd time and had to rescuittated (sp?) so this really freaks me out.

I hate death sentence and hope karma will take care of him. At least he is term limited for governor and don't think he would challenge either Rubio or Scott for Senator.

[littlemissmartypants]

47. Maternal Mortality short video with stats, sound down, annoying generic music

?si=fsS-8SpUXGZB0mBx

https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-have-the-highest-maternal-mortality-rates/#:~:text=Mississippi%20had%20the%20highest%20maternal%20mortality%20rate%20in%202021%2C%20with,not%20available%20for%20all%20states.

Hat Tip

SunSeeker

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3246611