A California medical clinic collapse reiterates what can happen when care is not exerted.
Big industries and businesses going broke. Flagship organizations of the most prosperous nation in the world struggling and failing, like the shameful mishandling of the Enron firm. Doctors, long among the income and wealth leaders of the nation, going down the tubes.
Virtually nothing is forever, and we got another indication of that when a big California county's largest doctors group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Mission Medical Associates of the Central Coast in San Luis Obispo, Calif., says it will remain open for its 55,000 patients. But it will be operating under a serious financial cloud and perhaps with a departure of some doctors.
Word of the agency's shaky financial condition long has been circulating. Things got worse after the Sept. 11 tragedies when the economy slumped even more and there was a slowdown in payments from patients and insurance companies.
Somebody along the line failed to check the books and look into the cash drawer, and 50 or so doctors in the group didn't keep track of the management and administration.
This was a longstanding successful operation that began in 1941 and for years was highly regarded. Later, in 1996, the group was sold to outsiders and things began to unravel, just as they have done with so many "takeovers" in so many fields in recent years. All the more reason, of course, for Kansas officials to look carefully before they allow Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas to be absorbed by an outside agency with a questionable record in some instances.
In San Luis Obispo, there already is a shortage of doctors, and it is feared the Chapter 11 status of the clinic will exacerbate that problem.
Time was when doctors, hospitals, clinics and the like seemed impervious to anything such as bankruptcy. But when conditions are allowed to deteriorate and nobody takes charge, there are disasters like the one in California.
For decades now, we have been convinced that there is no danger to getting bigger and spending more. Consider the folly of the dot-com tragedies in recent times, when spending rather than production and management was the watchword.
It happens in all fields, including our major companies, and doctors for all their reputations for goodness and mercy are no more immune to bad guidance than anyone else.
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