Dr. Ben Carson for Pres. 2016 supports freemarket healthcare & competition

Dr. Craig M. Wax was privileged to speak with Dr. Ben Carson on the conference call tonight. Dr. Wax made a statement about re establishing a robust freemarket in health insurance and hospital competition to bring quality and best price to market. He echoed my sentiment and said “Dr. Wax, I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Dr. Ben Carson 2016 is part of the solution to prevent America’s decline.
RunBenRun.org

Letter to AOA President on AOA plan for ACGME takeover of OGME

Dr. Juhasz,

Just when did AOAs dues paying osteopathic physician membership and societies get to feedback alternative ideas and weigh in on OGME funding options as you stated in your Med Ec interview below? Not at all. The AOA trustees unilaterally make the decision some time ago. Many DOs and many component specialty societies like AOCD were dead set against the ACGME takeover, or, at least wanting defined terms and conditions set like ACOFP, otherwise bail out. Never did the AOA solicit member opinions or allow input, let alone dissent against the preset policy OGME sellout to ACGME takeover. AOA top-down propaganda are not grass-roots fact. Has the AOA administration learned nothing from the failed AMA takeover in California in 1960?

Quote: Juhasz says AOA members have had ample time to consider the agreement and offer input. “We’ve been having an ongoing dialogue with ACGME since 2012 that’s been reported to the membership,” he says. Since arriving at the agreement in February, “there have been multiple opportunities for dialogue with the profession at state and specialty society meetings to help them understand how we’ve moving forward.” http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical-economics/news/allopathic-osteopathic-graduate-training-programs-unify-accreditation-process

We’re being forceably strapped into AOA’s leftist liberal agenda “moving forward” off the government debt cliff, like the current US administration. No, thank you. As a private practice DO and AOA member for 20 years, I protest. And if you think I’m the only one… You will see.

After twenty years of increasing AOA corporatization and weak physician leadership, now is your chance at the helm. Steer our 140 year old brave physician profession into independence and freedom for the betterment of the patient-physicians relationship, away from government, hospital health system and special interest dependence. The choice is yours. We are all making ours.

Best wishes for good health,
Craig M. Wax, DO
Family physician, Editorial Board of Medical Economics
Host of Your Health Matters
Rowan Radio 89.7 WGLS FM
http://wgls.rowan.edu/?feed=YOUR_HEALTH_MATTERS
Twitter @drcraigwax
Independent Physicians For Patient independence @IP4PI
IP4PI.wordpress.com

Congress Reform Act of 2016

1. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

2. No Tenure / No Pension.  A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay or any other benefits when they’ve completed their term in office.

3.  Congress loses their current taxpayer paid health care insurance during and after tenure and must purchase their own health care insurance by the same laws and rules as the American people.

4.  Members of Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

We cannot give in.

Dr. Gina Reghetti responds to the events at last week’s AOA House of Delegates meeting in Chicago where the HOD approved the GME merger and brazenly blocked a resolution in opposition to OCC/MOL.

Unbelievable!

They are cowards. They all go with the flow in fear of consequences that would threaten their medical licenses. What good is it being a doctor when non-doctor providers practice medicine and are not bound by the same laws as doctors? We aren’t permitted to do anything anymore due to government and insurance regulations, and now the powers are fighting to take away self-pay for medical services.

AOA HOD Delegates afraid to speak up. Why?

One cry from several peers on the floor of the HOD at AOA this week was where was the support from within. People were afraid to stand up for their rights because they “get silenced while speaking, cut off by chairs that use Robert’s Rules to funnel dissent to the sidelines indefinitely or terminate discussions so that members are not permitted to explore the issues more fully”. Once their opposition has been registered ” They are often not invited back to sit as delegates.” In that environment compromise is not an option.

In order to have an organized mechanism we need to make a space available where people can speak freely and not have their opinions subject to scrutiny by their national organizations. “There are multiple examples of our professional organizations actually working toward academic censure over the past 20 years with individuals who speak out against current policy.”

MOC: The Race for Money

The Practical C-L Psychiatrist

http://t.co/9UlS8Mej6p

— James Amos (@jamostheelder) July 18, 2014

I found the tweet above after I got the usual American Medical Association Political Action Committee (AMPAC) dues invoice asking for the millionth time for a $100 fee to help fund their political action activities. I read the letter and marveled at the ironic ring of one paragraph:

You have trained for years; have invested significant amounts of money; and have dedicated countless hours to your profession and your patients. Unfortunately, many politicians who make decisions that impact your practice do not understand or appreciate the sacrifices you have made. We need to let them know where physicians stand and make sure the resources are available this November.

The AMA House of Delegates (HOD) didn’t go far enough in June. It failed to adopt a resolution calling for a Moratorium on MOC. I thought they realized I have trained for years, invested…

View original post 1,048 more words

ALL DOs must read this now prior to AOA delegates mtg July 18, 2014

CLICK HERE to download this letter and table of resolutions in PDF format.

Dear Osteopathic physician,​​​​​ 7/10/2014

In recent years the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) has strategically traded away their responsibility to their constituent members bringing government and insurance industry regulation ever increasingly in between the physician and the patient. They have done so, in favor of corporate strategies and business models that have eroded patient quality of care, decreased physician efficiency, sacrificed private practice, buried physician offices in paperwork, and cost physicians tremendous expense and anxiety. Through all of this they have not only not provided additional benefit to the patient population but they have detracted from it. The result of their negotiations and agreements has been a collapse of healthcare delivery under the heavy hands of mandatory enforcement, the advancement of third party intervention, the reduction of patient contact time, the reduction of net income to physicians, the decrease in access to quality care for patients and the massive increase in bureaucracy. All this has added great expense for all premium payers and physicians while new corporate structures and businesses are created from that drain on healthcare delivery. They are about to now give away our professions control over our unique educational paradigm and in the contract, force us to give away our uniqueness and our more comprehensive educational requirements, our training sites, and our control of post graduate education to an organization that has no concept of the educational deficit they have regarding our approach to health rather than disease. Our original article “Saving Private Osteopathic medicine,” has been denied JAOA publication for over two years by AOA corporate leadership who are afraid to debate and answer memebership DOs questions. One author, George Watson DO died fighting the process. Read it here: Saving Private Osteopathic Medicine https://ip4pi.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/saving-private-osteopathic-medicine-2/

The proposed ACGME merger, is actually a takeover of OGME that will leave our profession without any autonomy in graduate medical education and will result in the loss of practice autonomy and eventually our Osteopathic schools through the process as it is no laid out over the next 5 years to 2020. This was written about extensively by Norman Gevitz PhD, Osteopathic historian and researcher. http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/hpf/pdf/bios%20april%202014/2014-AODME%20Presentation%20The%20Unintended%20Consequences%20of%20the%20ACGME%20Merger.pdf

The House of Delegates (HOD) and all practicing DOs must demand the AOA stop their policies toward ACGME merger as proposed, OCC/MOC, MOL, and they must begin to support their osteopathic physician membership unconditionally against ALL competing interests.

Please read 10 point questions below that have been asked of the AOA for answers they have continued to not answer for 3 years this September 2014. If any of the questions raise your “index of suspicion”, contact your AOA State Delegates immediately and prior to the meeting next week, beginning Friday, July 18. The COMPLETE 168 resolutions pending are at the following link: http://www.osteopathic.org/inside-aoa/events/annual-business-meeting/house-resolutions/Pages/default.aspx Please read them and decide for yourself what you might be for or against.

A bulleted list below, of some of the relevant resolution agenda numbers and titles will be followed by recommendations “for or against” them in reference to a large body of physicians in the trenches whose voices are not being listened to by any of the “elected authorities for which our dues pay”.

We as individual Osteopathic Physicians, Osteopathic State Associations members, and as diplomates of Subspecialty Colleges, must take action to change AOA policy direction. Our Osteopathic practice of medicine, our patient populations and our ability to support our families hang in the balance.

10 questions for the AOA that remain un-answered by any executive officer thus far:

1. Why is AOA forcing ACGME merger (takeover of OGME)? What alternatives have also been explored? Why would any organization walk away from millions in government funding that maintain our own unique OGME?

2. Why is AOA pursuing osteopathic continuous certification and maintenance of certification (OCC/MOC) when they are time and money prohibitive for DO physicians? Osteopathic CME has always been flexible and more than adequate.

3. Why is AOA pursuing maintenance of licensure (MOL) against state board autonomy, DO state association preferences and physicians professional independence?

4. Why is AOA not fighting NP and PA expanding practice rights in each state? They are practicing medicine independently in increasing numbers of states without having to complete a full curriculum in medicine. That is condoning malpractice.

5. Why do AOA publications refuse to publish any articles that discuss or question AOA actions and policy?

6. Why is AOA embracing all HHS/CMS policies even before they are written, like pay for performance (P4P) when these policies are being used to deny payment to good practicing physicians instead?

7. Why is AOA complicit in the financial capture of medicine by so-called “stakeholders;” insurance companies, hospital health systems, government, HIT and corporate interests and insistent on excluding patients and physicians in private practice as stakeholders at all?

8. Why is AOA complicit in the regulatory capture of the practice of medicine by government, thus losing all true Osteopathic practice, their professional integrity, and our entire DO professions underpinnings?

9. Why doesn’t the AOA present it’s member DOs with all options of practice including private direct pay options where the patient-physician relationship is paramount and sacrosanct?

10. Why doesn’t the AOA support private independent Osteopathic Medical practice against the competing interest of all others?

40 of the most relevant resolution proposed follow. Please review those of interest to you and make your opinion(s) known to our representative this week.

RES. #	Title	FOR	AGAINST
H-201	Increase in Graduate Medical Education Training Opportunities	FOR
H-202	Ensuring Adequate Resources to the Future of Osteopathic Medicine	FOR
H-203	Osteopathic Medical Education	FOR
H-204	Reversal of Needs Assessment Requirement for CME Programs	FOR
H-205	Assure Graduate Medical Education Residency Positions to Graduates of U.S. Medical Schools	FOR
H-206	Goal of Osteopathic Graduate Medical Education	FOR
H-207	LCME Admission to AOA Residency Programs	FOR: WITH TIME REQUIREMENTS OF EQUIVALENCY IN OPP AND OMT TRAINING
H-211	Maintaining the Integrity and Mission of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (COM) and University Health Science Centers (UHSC) Granting the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine Degree (DO) H279-A/09	FOR
H-215	Graduate Medical Education – Training Of Us Medical School Graduates (H315- A/09)	FOR
H-216	State Mandated Continuing Medical Education Requirements	FOR
H-218	Blue Ribbon Commission Report	FOR
H-304	Government Funding for Hospitals Not Accepting COCA Students	FOR
H-340	Unionization Of Physicians (H233-A/09)		AGAINST
H-347	Opposition to Implementation of ICD-10	FOR
H-348	Osteopathic Physician Compensation Tied to Patient Satisfaction Surveys	FOR
H-404	Correction of Public Information about the Osteopathic Profession	FOR
H-500	AOA Constitution & Bylaws – AOA Executive Director – Title Change		AGAINST
H-603	Opposition to Maintenance of Licensure	FOR
H-604	Dissemination of Evidence Based Osteopathic Medicine	FOR
H-607	Government Intervention in Private Practice H213-A/09 (H219-A/04)	FOR
H-609	Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Communications With Physicians H216-A/09 (H222-A/04)	FOR
H-627	Industry Transparency Standards (H326- A/09)	FOR
H-632	Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Documentation Regulations	FOR
H-636	BSGA Report on H-623-A/2013 Opposition to Maintenance of Licensure	DEMAND ACTION ON THIS. PUT IT TO A VOTE
H-637	Collaboration to Protect the Integrity of the Physician Testing Process for Unlimited Licensure (H327-A/09)		AGAINST LETTING AMA RUN OUR TESTING
H-800	Unified Graduate Medical Education Accreditation System		AGAINST
H-801	AOA/AACOM/ACGME Single Unified Graduate Medical Education Accreditation System	FOR
H-802	AOA/AACOM/ACGME Single Accreditation System For GME		AGAINST
H-803	NJAOPS’ Support For ACOFP Resolution “AOA/AACOM Unified Residency Accreditation System”	WITHDRAWN
H-804	AOA / ACGME	FOR
H-805	Participation in AOA ACGME Merger	????	???? STOP THE MERGER
H-806	Accepting AOA Board Certification in AOA ACGME Merger	???FOR AOA RECOGNITION AS EQUIVALENT	???STOP THE MERGER AS IT IS PROPOSED
H-807	AOA / ACGME	FOR
H-808	Single Graduate Medical Education Accreditation System	???? AOA DOES NOT HAVE THE CAPACITY TO DO THIS	??? STOP THE MERGER AS PROPOSED
H-809	Unified Graduate Medical Education Accreditation System		AGAINST
H-810	Support of Unified Graduate Medical Education		AGAINST
H-811	Creation of an Osteopathic Emphasis Track for the Unified Graduate Medical Education (GME) System		AGAINST: THE EDUCATIONAL REQUIREMENT STANDRDS ARE LOWER THAN THOSE OF A FULL TIME OSTEOPATHIC STUDENT. UNACCEPTABLE
H-812	AOA/AACOM Unified Residency Accreditation System	FOR
H-813	AOA/AACOM Single Accreditation System	FOR

 

DOsCOMITT – DOs Committed to Osteopathic Medicine Today and Tomorrow

Craig M. Wax DO corresponding author
Carlisle Holland DO
Dane Shepherd DO
Richard Koss DO
David Zeiger DO
George Watson, DO, Emeritus
Steven Horvitz DO
David Dornfeld, DO
Robert Maurer, DO
Albert Talone DO
Brad Kline, DO
Gina Reghetti DO
Michael Ward DO
Kelli Ward DO
Charles J. Smutny III DO, Editor