My thoughts on Stark Laws, Anti-Kickbacks, & Hospital Ownership Bans.
10/22/23
Wow. It’s all about control.
Designating what physicians can/cannot do in terms of business.
An attempt to control ethical decision making by some of THE MOST ETHICAL PROFESSIONALS ALIVE.
I think puppeteering policy shapers forgot – or perhaps never actually understood/realized – what it takes to become a qualified licensed physician legally allowed (and an earned privilege) to independently care for patients.
One does not become a physician by buying a spot, negotiating a deal, campaigning, bribery, lobbying, or a promise of financial gain.
Choosing to become a physician takes commitment. YEARS of education. Sacrifice. Determination. Intelligence. Resilience. A willingness to serve and make ethical decisions. The ability to persevere, wake at a moment’s notice and immediately take action so as to SAVE LIVES. Living in the hospital. Eating cafeteria food. Holidays, birthdays, family events, special occasions missed, left, or unattended due to being in a call room, delivery room, on the wards, operating room, ICU, nursery, caring for patients, making life and death decisions, helping, healing. Often waiting to use the bathroom, eat, or sleep because of the ever increasing responsibility of practicing our learned craft and caring for our patients as we were so well trained. Committing to living and abiding by a higher set of standards. Honoring a sacred oath to first do no harm.
We become physicians because we care. We love science, people, and have dedicated our lives to serving others – yet in order to continue to serve – we also must EARN.
At what point did being a physician equate to being an underpaid undervalued replaceable laborer?
We physicians are uniquely qualified human beings – with special needed skill sets – for which we worked hard, persevered and went into debt to obtain. We are ethical, determined, fair minded, altruistic, unique individuals and deserve respect, trust, and to be well compensated for our accomplishments, efforts, and ongoing willingness to serve.
Obtaining a doctorate of Medicine/Osteopathy takes YEARS of commitment, sacrifice, education, ethical decision making, countless hours of studying, numerous tests, exams, lifelong learning, and an ongoing curiosity and willingness to innovate and lead. Yet we are forced to waste precious hours mitigating continual hoops of credentialing and “maintenance of certification”, a racketeering scheme which further squeezes physicians monetarily, wastes our time, and prevents us from actually caring for our patients.
And now laws have been created to further prevent us from earning a living?
And did you know in 2010 the Affordable Care Act created an anti-competitive arbitrary ban on new physician-led and owned hospitals?
In no other profession do such laws exist.
We physicians are valuable experts and our services are needed.
In every other business/profession/industry highly valued capable unique experts are compensated for said expertise, talent and value.
Why are we asked to give away our services and expertise for free?
It makes no sense.
Who in their right mind would sacrifice and work endlessly in this day and age for free?
Vertically integrated healthcare corporations are USING PHYSICIANS AND PATIENTS as pawns in their for-profit game. Yet somehow stark laws and anti-kickback statutes only apply to physicians?
Manipulation. Loopholes. Safe harbors. Legalese.
Kickback arrangements sneakily created between their vertically integrated networks, masked as “rebates”, “affiliate agreements”, “collaborative partnerships”, “formularies”, all construed so as to skirt the anti-kickback statutes, and keep patients spending within the confines of their vertically owned and operated business facilities. Keep them in “network”, and reap the benefits of ever increasing profits.
What if we eradicated all of the third party parasitic players?
What would that look like?
Physicians and patients once again forming trusted ongoing relationships. TIME for learning, innovation, research, serving and earning enough so as to give back through non-profit entities and volunteering.
Respect. Autonomy. Trust. Relationships.
Humans caring for humans.
Practicing our chosen profession as we were trained. Allowed to refer to the most appropriate physician colleague, prescribe the needed medication, order the appropriate test, lab, treatment to help our patients – not the corporate cartel’s bottom line.
What if we were able to digitally own and authenticate our credentials (Diplomas, state medical licenses, DEA, CMEs, letter of recommendations, procedure logs, certificates of malpractice insurance, USMLE scores, etc) – our unique self sovereign identities – and store them in a secure, easily accessible and immediately sharable digital wallet?
What if all of our intellectual data – every piece of information typed into an EMR – was owned and controlled by us?
What if our interactions with our patients were direct and free of third party influence?
What if we had a secure physician to physician only referral portal so we could coordinate patient care directly, amongst ourselves, free from and outside of the current medical industrial complex?
What if ALL PHYSICIANS could come together on a physician only secure decentralized platform to voice our ideas, concerns, thoughts, and to share freely without fear of retaliation, retribution, being kicked out of a large group, or terminated due to having a differing opinion, idea, vision, thought, or plan?
What if there was a platform where we physicians could leverage our collective voice as one so as to stand together and create needed change for our patients, our practices, our communities, and ourselves?
What if I told you this platform already exists, is currently being built and optimized, and you have an opportunity to become an investor in this mission driven movement to save medicine?
What if you had a say, and your voice and ideas could help design and develop this forward thinking physician led healthcare of the future?
Would you join us?
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If you dream of a future with autonomy, respect, where your expertise is valued, where you make the decisions, and you are well compensated for your expertise – JOIN US: HPEC | StartEngine
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We can create and execute a new era of MEDICINE instead of healthcare.
PHYSICIANS caring for PATIENTS. (Not providers satisfying clients/customers.)
We can bring back our time honored profession together. HPEC is the tool that will allow us to do so.
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*Please share with all of your physician colleagues and friends, and please register and join us to learn more and have any questions answered: Tuesday, October 24, 2023 at 9pmEST and Thursday, October 26, 2023 at 6pmEST.