PSARA presents “Is Medicare Advantage Driving Your Providers to Despair? And Why You Should Care”. Dr. Carol Paris and Dr. Diljeet Singh, from Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), will discuss how insurance companies force providers into crises of conscience, thereby adversely affecting both providers and patients. The insurers require practices like prior authorization that lead to delays and denials of care, which providers know will be injurious to their patients. Such profit-maximizing strategies are used by the insurers that administer Medicare Advantage, which now covers over 50% of seniors.
Dr. Carol Paris, a past president of PNHP, is a retired psychiatrist who worked for more than 25 years in private practice, community mental health, prison psychiatry, and academia, including a year as a consultant psychiatrist in New Zealand. She lives in Sewanee, Tenn., where her primary interests include moral injury in healthcare and mentoring medical students and early career physicians for leadership in advocacy.
Dr. Diljeet K. Singh, a women’s health advocate and an integrative gynecologic oncologist in clinical practice, received her medical degree from Northwestern University and master’s degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed an obstetrics and gynecology residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and a gynecologic oncology fellowship at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. She currently serves as vice president for Physicians for a National Health Program.