"Our government's control of healthcare doesn't
end with increasing medical practice mandates
and fee restrictions on medical doctors,
it extends into the fabric of financially controlling
hospitals and physician offices by means of
a company named American Securities."
The oppression, control, deliberate and intentional destructive process pointed straight at the
medical profession is now reaching a level of nightmarish height that hospitals and physicians
will be spending more time trying to protect their asses than to do what we are taught
to do... practice medicine and actually enjoy it.
This spiral is moving upward so fast that physicians will not be able in the future to practice what
they were taught, live with the integrity the medical profession once had, and retain the
independence of thought and action so important to medical practice business of medicine. This description of present and future medical practice life is best exemplified by PRESS GANEY.
Press Ganey is a little-recognized company, founded in 1985 by an anthropologist and sociologist from Notre Dame, to comply with the federal compulsory mandate required of hospitals. The federal mandate required all hospitals to do patient surveys about how happy patients were with their medical care. Naturally, guess who the hospitals turned to at the time in order to comply--a small company waiting on the sidelines to do the surveys for them--called Press Ganey? Oh yes,
the company was sold in 2003 to American Securities, a New York private equity firm for a
reported $100 million.
Let me point out to you a few of the consequences of this survey mandate that has been terrorizing hospitals and physicians, at least the ones that know about it. I suggest you read an excellent summary article about this in FORBES... January 21, 2013--by Kai Falkenberg--titled, "BAD MEDICINE."
- The theory under Obamacare: Betting that increased customer satisfaction will improve the quality of medical care and reduce costs.
- The teeth that create compliance: $850 million reduction of Medicare reimbursement fees for hospitals with the worst "satisfaction scores" in these mandated surveys.
- The dominant force behind the mandate: Giving patients everything they want and need to
be satisfied with their healthcare, forces hospitals and physicians to deviate from what they know is the right medical care and treatment of patients in order to comply with the survey scores and mandates or be punished severely.
- Judgment relies totally on the patient satisfaction survey scores: In essence, medical reimbursement systems, medical liability environment, and clinical performance
score-keepers ensure that hospitals and physicians will be rewarded for excess and
penalized for not doing enough in medical care of patients.
- Money drives medical professional behavior: Employed physician's compensation is
increasingly tied to their personal "patient satisfaction" scores, leading to increased over
treatment and over testing of patient's. Hospital fee reimbursement is directly tied to
their "patient satisfaction" survey scores.
- Employed physicians salaries rise and fall depending on their personal "patient
satisfaction" scores: This blackmails hospitals or other healthcare delivery organizations,
who pay the physicians, to kowtow to the "scores" mandate to maintain their highest fee reimbursement for medical services to patients by paying employed physicians as
much as $10,000 per year less if their "scores" are low.
- The 2002 CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) created a national
compulsory patient survey program for patient surveys and required public reporting
of the survey results: Survey programs processed 70 million patient surveys in 2011-2012
from 10,000 plus health care organizations and half of all U.S. hospitals. Patrick Ryan, CEO
of Press Ganey, already has predicted the next step--surveys of medical clinics and
physician's offices. - Results of this mandated patient survey system: Cost of medical care has increased
billions of dollars just from this one mandate that has no proof that it will reduce our healthcare costs and has, instead, added billions of dollars to health care costs.The
Cleveland Clinic now spends $500,000 a year on government-dictated surveys.
Did I just hear a thunderous roar of outrage shaking my computer off the table? I thought so. Physicians love to be measured, rated, categorized, and investigated for their professional
clinical care and backgrounds... don't they? When I think about the numbers of sites now
"scoring" physicians on public media such as Kudzu.com, beenverified.com, healthgrades.com,
and others, I see and understand why the number of physicians is decreasing at a rapid pace.
You can't hide with your head in the sand expecting to achieve true success. It would be foolish
to simply roll over and play dead without at least making use of your creative muscle to avoid being brought into deeper bondage by the bottom feeders.
Fear dependency keeps you searching for a chink in the armor of increased control of healthcare, while you should be planning for, investigating, and finding ways to bypass the issue of increased
restrictions on medical care by physicians. Instead, be creative enough to discover one of many ways to do much more with much fewer options. It's better to light a candle than
try to cure darkness.
The ultimate indignation felt by every physician is evidenced by the government using an intellectually disgraceful subjective criteria as the basis for improving health care which is unsupported by any acceptable measure of scientific study other than, "It seems like a good idea." Secondly, the surveys are flawed in multiple ways that begs repair. Thirdly, the simplest cost estimates to the government, actually to taxpayers, indicates that the cost of healthcare is increased by billions of dollars expecting the results to be beneficial and cost saving.
The most regrettable aspect of it all is that physicians and all healthcare professionals are being involuntarily forced into compliance to a system that requires compromises in professional integrity, ethics, and honesty beyond any tolerance.
The insanity of those making the rules goes beyond comprehension. Unfortunately, the facts won't
be made available to the general public and the common person will continue to be led to believe
that the government knows best and physicians are too dumb to realize it.
"When people are least sure, they are often most dogmatic."
---John Kenneth Galbraith
There's another side to this unknown small company, American Securities. that gives cause for all stock market investors and traders reason to storm the gates. The stock broker that I have relied on for stock investing over the past three years learned something about this company that 99% of the public do not know about.
Do you know that when you have the initiative to buy stocks that you believe you own those stocks. Every purchase of a stock you invest in you know that you receive a receipt from your stock exchange that you made that payment, which seems to be a valid and legal form of telling you that you are the owner of that stock. You never get a legal document or certificate of ownership.
Those certificates are kept at the small company noted above and that company is the legal owner of your stock, of everyone's stocks. But we are permitted to buy and sell the stocks as we please and earn or lose money in those stock trades.
You will have to investigate all this on your own for validation.
----Professional Probe----
"One thing in our lives that continues
to remain valid. The more we learn the
more we must recognize that behind what
we know there is always something unknown
clinging to our backs that we don't see
and it pulls us away from our purposes."
Articles©2013-2022/CGG INVESTMENTS LLC. All rights reserved. #137, 3-16-22
