Greased Pig

A home health agency I know just suffered a State Survey.  I say “suffered” because, like a disapproving nun the tight-lipped surveyor hunched in a back room for four days, poring over charts and files guided by her silent, inflexible checklists.  Everyone in the office skulked past the closed door, hushed and tremulous, until finally she gathered her articles of damnation and marched primly away.  A week later came the bombshell: they had been tried and found sorely wanting, so sorely, in fact, that their office was threatened with shuttering.  I happened to know that this office and the people working in it were doing a fantastic job managing their client’s care at home – if the office was shuttered because of a checklist, everyone would lose, no one (outside of the surveyor)would win.  I don’t know the circumstances behind why the surveyor felt she needed to throw such a big rock in the pool, but the fact that she could, and did, re-iterates the glaring power discrepancy that is possessed by regulating bodies such a JHACO, CHAP, OSHA, the health department, the state, etc.  There are so many agencies jumping on the pile (over 90 of them, just at the federal level)trying to control and manipulate healthcare it reminds me of the pig-wrestling contest at the county fair, where the object is to tackle and hold a pig that’s been slathered in tallow – the harder you squeeze it, the quicker it slips from your grasp.  Trying to keep the minutia in line is one of the things making our healthcare system so ponderous and insurance so expensive! Healthcare is not about checklists.  It’s about care, first and foremost.  Maybe the medieval monks had it right, when they were responsible for healthcare; they took you into a quiet place, gently bathed you, fed and watered you and left you to the Almighty, aided by their supplications.  Of course, the average lifespan was 42 years, so at 43 years old I’ve outlived the curve.  Oh well, I can’t afford health insurance anyway. I’ve lived a full life.  I’m ready - let’s do this! Out with the regulating bodies!  In with the greased pig!  Let nature take its course!