A Closer Look Quality Of Care:
An Interview with Dr. Guy Culpepper

13 Oct 1998
ABC-TV World News Tonight

PETER JENNINGS: In our reporting last night, we pointed out that after the explosion in managed care, which we've had with us for 20 years now, 80 percent of Americans say they are satisfied with what they're getting. That leaves, of course, 20 percent who are not. And as you may have heard, there are doctors who are not happy either. ABC's Erin Hayes tonight on some of the doctors.

1st DOCTOR: Go right, go right.

ERIN HAYES, ABC News: (voice-over) They deal.

2nd DOCTOR: No pulse.

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over).every day.

3rd DOCTOR: How much time do we have?

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over).with life and death decisions. But thousands of doctors say they're being second guessed, forced to cut back on patient care, pressured by HMOs and other managed care companies.

Dr. K. LYNNE MORITZ, President, St. Louis Medical Association: We as doctors feel that we're living with a devil that we have to talk about.

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over) In Dallas, Guy Culpepper is one of hundreds of doctors who just quit one of that city's biggest HMOs, fed up.

Dr. GUY CULPEPPER : We're forcing people through the system so quickly, you don't have time to make that kind of human connection.

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over) And spending too much time, they say, phoning managed care companies.

PHYSICIAN'S ASSISTANT: I have a prescription for.

KAREN: Hi, Monica. This is Karen at Dr. Culpepper 's office.

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over).to get them to OK tests and medicine for patients.

Dr. ROBERT GUNBY: It's sort of like calling to say, "Mother, may I" for everything that you do for a patient.

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over) Many are convinced managed care companies have made the process difficult on purpose.

Dr. K. LYNNE MORITZ: Every dollar that they spend for patient care is less for them, and every dollar that they can delay or deny is more for them.

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over) In St. Louis...

Dr. GARRY M. VICKAR: When I called the company...

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over)...the city's medical society started a managed care grievance committee.

Dr. LEE RIGG: Insurance companies deny what patients really need.

Dr. GARRY M. VICKAR: You get worn down. We just don't have the resources or the time to constantly go back and constantly write letters and constantly protest the denials.

Dr. GORDON GOLDMAN: There's a real problem out there.

ERIN HAYES: (on camera) Many doctors acknowledge they have lost money because of managed care but say the fight now is over something much more important -- their independence to make decisions that are right for their patients.

Dr. HEATHER SOWELL: We did not take this course of training to look after the interests of a group of stockholders.

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over) Doctors Heather Sowell and Jonathan Sheldon have declared their Denver practice off-limits to HMOs. They call it "HM-no."

Dr. JONATHAN SHELDON: There was no other way to practice medicine, in our opinion, ethically, for us.

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over) But bucking managed care is risky business. When Dr. Culpepper finally told that Dallas HMO to take a hike.

Dr. GUY CULPEPPER : Good girl.

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over).the company walked away with nearly a third of his patients. He is slowly rebuilding his practice...

Dr. GUY CULPEPPER : Right now, I think she's considering becoming a physician.

ERIN HAYES: (voice-over)...but like many doctors, he worries that the pressures of managed care have damaged the practice of medicine. Erin Hayes, ABC News, St. Louis.

PETER JENNINGS: Tomorrow night, managed care and mental health. Holding up treatment, losing treatment, in some cases, because HMOs won't pay.

Culpepper Ancestry. Dr. Guy Lee Culpepper (#48075) is the son of Raymond Lee and Patricia Ann Canady Culpepper