It is no secret that the cost of everything has significantly increased over the past two years. We see it daily when we fill up our gas tanks, go to the grocery store, go out to dinner with our families, and go on a vacation. It is evident that hotel costs doubled in rates from the previous year, and the list continues. 

Inflation continues to affect not only our personal lives but also our professional lives as private practitioners/business owners. 

The big difference between us as private practitioners/business owners and the examples I gave you is that we cannot adjust our prices to compensate for the increased cost of supplies/equipment in our offices. 

For example, restaurants can increase the prices on their menus to make up for the difference in their increased cost of items/goods.

On the other hand, we can not increase our copays or reimbursements from the insurance companies because we are on a controlled fee-based schedule set by Medicare and the insurance companies. 

In my private office, the cost of medical supplies, office supplies, and equipment has increased significantly compared to 2020. 

Something has to be done! 

As many of you know, there is a national injectable lidocaine shortage. I read some information online about why we have difficulty finding and buying one of the most used injectable anesthetics in our practices. 

According to https://www.ashp.org/drug-shortages/current-shortages/drug-shortage-detail.aspx?id=88, Pfizer has lidocaine presentations on shortage due to manufacturing delays and increased demand. 

According to https://pipelinemedical.com/blog/why-is-lidocaine-in-shortage/

“there was an increase in the demand for anesthetics during the pandemic. Many hospitalized intubated patients required anesthesia to avoid the discomfort and pain associated with it. This increased demand, resulting in a less obvious but anticipated shortage of local anesthetics such as lidocaine.”

As we all know, what happens when there is a supply shortage and increased demand? Prices will skyrocket. I’m anticipating this is what we’ll see happen with this lidocaine shortage and the other medical supplies that have significantly increased.

I also recently saw an article about our state representatives and their salaries in our local paper.  

One sentence captured my attention. 

“State representatives serve two-year terms with the salary this year set at $95,432.14 and raised annually by the inflation rate.”

It got me thinking that we, as healthcare professionals, who worked through the beginning and most challenging stages of the covid pandemic, ironically, are the ones who are unable to get our reimbursements adjusted due to inflation, unlike the previous examples mentioned in this article. 

My goal is to help our medical professionals/business owners continue successful practices by increasing our reimbursements from Medicare and other insurance providers based on the current inflation rate. 

I request that our PPMA members have your accountants put together a cost of supplies report from 2020, compare it to 2022, and email it to our executive Director Michael Davis. I would also like to have the APMA pair up with the AMA and fight for our private practitioners/business owners of all medical professionals & specialists, from primary care doctors to dermatologists, neurologists, cardiologists, etc. 

Any recommendations or suggestions would be helpful from our PPMA members. 

I appreciate your support of PPMA, and we will continue to do whatever we can to keep our profession thriving and responsibly working together!