Medicare Rights: Fill & Download for Free

After a week, let’s take a look at the news:During the first weekend of the Trump presidency, the south was ravaged by 50 tornadoes. Nearly 2 dozen dead, and while there was much fanfare over Trump signing a hiring freeze on federal government employees (way to go in job creation by the way…) the Governors of Mississippi and Georgia were begging for FEMA boots on the ground. These tornadoes took place from Thursday -Sunday. Trump signed to send FEMA to Georgia on Wednesday. I believe it would have been much more appropriate to be focused on this instead of:No one other than Trump cares about the size of the crowd at the inauguration. Those that voted for him in Mississippi and Georgia, needed an immediate response. They did not care about how many were at his inauguration. Bush was attacked for not responding to Katrina… and it was in the same time frame that it took Trump to respond. There was no reason to delay like this to send necessary aid.But… this matters.There was a bit of fall-out over that press conference. It did not have the intended results that Spicer wanted. It made the media furious that a Press Secretary would blatantly lie. Regardless of anything else, the Press Secretary is expected to be honest.We did learn though exactly what to expect. Alternative Facts. What you and I would call lies, this administration considers “alternative facts”.Steve Bannon CALLED the NY Times. Steve Bannon wanted to tell the News media to shut up. He wanted to insult them, to try to assert his “power”. While the news media is not going to shut up, there is one thing that happened, that I’m sure Bannon didn’t see coming. What’s that?Dan Rather has come out of retirement, with the express purpose of setting the record straight in regards to claims made by Trump and team. Check out his page: News And Guts | Facebook Over 800,000 following the page after only a couple days up and running. I personally… am thrilled with this. I don’t think it’s what Bannon had in mind.Perhaps Bannon too was thinking about this…What we did learn is that between Bannon and Conway, we will not get accurate information, and if they are pushed to answer… they will pull out “Alternative Facts”. The truth it appears, needs to be searched for.The Doomsday Clock was advanced by 30 seconds. This is due to concerns over rhetoric and lack of respect for expertise.Executive Director, Rachel Bronson said:“We’re so concerned about the rhetoric, and the lack of respect for expertise, that we moved it 30 seconds,” she said. “Rather than create panic, we’re hoping that this drives action.”In an op-ed for The New York Times, Dr. Titley and Dr. Krauss elaborated on their concerns, citing the increasing threats of nuclear weapons and climate change, as well as President Trump’s pledges to impede what they see as progress on both fronts, as reasons for moving the clock closer to midnight.“Never before has the Bulletin decided to advance the clock largely because of the statements of a single person,” they wrote. “But when that person is the new president of the United States, his words matter.It was reported Wednesday that the entire Senior management team of the State Department quit as it became apparent that Tillerson would be confirmed as Secretary of State. Once word reached the administration, they announced that the people had been forced out. Regardless, these were career people, that had an experience and knowledge that you cannot find on a website for jobs.Trump is not concerned…He has clearly had other things to deal with…Trump’s cabinet choices have not all been confirmed. They are still in hearings, with Democrats raking them over the coals. However, Trump is not taking well any votes that are against confirmation of his choices. People that are being sworn in… it seems don’t actually want the POTUS in the picture with them.This is from someone that says they are an aide in the White House. This account was deleted on Thursday, but they did have much to say:So… don’t be surprised if you see one of his apprentice stars suddenly handling all of the White House Press Conferences. Given the fighting between Conway and Spicer… I wonder what Conway would do with Omarosa.It appears that the rank and file Republicans may soon find that they are on their own with Trump. If Priebus departs, then likely Bannon will try to step in. Given how much Bannon hates Ryan… that could be interesting.I wonder if a new Chief of Staff can explain to Trump the importance of the crowds.This is how to get things done during this administration?Now, you may take the Whistleblower tweets with a grain of salt, but if the Trump Administration were a ship… it would be sinking from all of the leaks.Trump issued a hiring freeze for federal agencies and then ordered a communications blackout. In response to this, some official social media accounts have tweeted out messages decidedly at odds with his agenda and leaks are flowing into newsrooms from across the federal government.What began as nothing more than a protest by a former Badlands National Park Service employee exploded overnight Tuesday and early Wednesday into a Twitter movement in support of climate change science.An anonymous group of people who claim to be National Park Service employees created an account using the agency’s official arrowhead logo as an avatar and unleashed on the Trump administration for muzzling federal workers, particularly those at the Environmental Protection Agency who have been barred from speaking to the press and public through social media.The Washington Post reached out to the group via Twitter, without much success. “We will not be identifying ourselves due to the anger and threats coming from President Trump’s loyalists,” came an anonymous reply. “We are just here to push the science that is being dismantled by the current administration.”There was the Women’s March on Washington*Image from VOA newsPerhaps THIS was what Trump thought he saw?The Women’s March (which had far more people than the inauguration nationwide) took place the day after the inauguration. It is only the beginning. #ScienceMarch is being planned. Scientists are also planning to run for office.After a Tuesday filled with news of gag orders on government scientists at several federal agencies, others in the science community are rapidly coming up with ways of pushing back against the new administration’s attempts to keep tax-funded research from the public. One group is in the early stages of forming a second march on Washington, DC — this time with a focus on science. Meanwhile, other scientists are thinking of ways to change policy, by running for office themselves.Trump signed an executive order to begin looking at repealing “Obamacare”. Upon that signing… whether they like it or not… it’s now going to be TRUMPCARE. Although… it seems that now that Republicans have the chance to put their own plan in place, no one is sure just EXACTLY what that will be. If you read the executive order, you will still be trying to figure out just what he really signed.It does seem that Trump supporters are going to pay dearly for this. Some supporters felt he would do nothing, others had not idea that Obamacare and ACA are the same thing. SURPRISE!Why Obamacare enrollees voted for TrumpOpinion | These coal country voters backed Trump. Now they’re worried about losing Obamacare.Dismayed Trump voters tweet about losing their Obamacare benefitsOh… by the way… do you plan to retire soon? Do you have parents that are retired? If so, I do hope you have funds set aside to support parents. Even though Trump had said he had no interest in touching Social Security and Medicare… He intends to do just that.The wall…. the wall… The Great Wall of Trump. Yeah… Mexico is going to pay for the wall… but not.President Trump tried to play hard-ball with Mexico’s President.It appears that he was not expecting the response he got.Mexico’s President has no intention of being bullied by Trump. He simply canceled the meeting.In a desperate attempt to fix this latest fiasco, Trump reached out to Mexico’s president. They spoke on the phone, and have agreed to another meeting.Nearly identical comments were released by both administrations with the exception of Mexico stating that both agreed that there would be no more public comments about the wall."With respect to the payment of the border wall, both Presidents recognized their differences clear and very public position on this sensitive issue, and agreed to resolve these differences as part of a comprehensive discussion of all aspects of the bilateral relationship. The Presidents also agreed for now not to speak publicly about this controversial issue."Trump then found himself being questioned about dropping sanctions against Putin. He waffled on that, and then was informed how the UK feels about it.Perhaps he was still embarrassed about his team spelling Theresa May’s name wrong… multiple times. Maybe the watched the porn star and decided they were one and the same.The President signed an executive order to cut off funding to Sanctuary cities. It will likely be struck down as unconstitutional.While Republicans are afraid to stand up to President Trump, it appears that the Mayors of many cities are not. It seems they are much tougher than Congress ever thought about being.*Image from News about #resisttrump on TwitterOh… and now… we have News about #resisttrump on TwitterWe cannot forget about the executive order that bans immigration… well except for the countries that Trump has business ties with. (can we whisper… conflict of interest?)In response, there is the St. Louis Manifest I highly suggest if you have not seen this that you take a look.In response to the question… Has President Trump exceeded or failed to meet my expectations…I had hoped against hope that I would not be right. I want to be wrong… no one wants to see our country struggle.This week has done nothing but re-affirm my belief that this administration is a disaster. With claims that Trump makes his decisions based on what he sees on TV, his refusal to give up his Samsung S3 phone (which can easily be hacked and turned into a mic so anyone can listen to his conversations)… the fighting among the staff and their leaking the problems to the press…the lack of basic organization that not only makes the President look bad but reflects on the nation… the silly tantrums over pictures of crowds… badly messing up his “throw-down” with Mexico… the alternative facts, refusal to distance himself from his business…Who could possibly foresee such a horrific week? Who can honestly look at this without throwing the politics in and feel all is well?

REALLY difficult to find the sweet spot. The US expects that if someone is harmed that there has to be a punitive assessment made on top of the actual expenses. In the UK for example it is ultra rare to see punitive damages applied to suits. In every job there will be substandard outcomes. They need to be repaired as close to normal as is possible but the issue is not the routine bad outcome the issue is when someone takes an expected cup of coffee from a server places it between thier legs in a moving car and then drives away and get burned and somehow sees it correct to blame the coffee vendor and a jury awarded an 8 digit reward for the incident and not just new clothes some surgery to repair things and done. We need to shift the outcomes so that bad outcomes repair people but don’t make them richYou are right the biggest expense in Mal-P related costs is not the insurance heck those rates have dropped significantly since I started over 3 decades ago. The REAL cost is the behavior we ALL have gotten into by ordering or requesting nonsensical tests studies and services ONLY for the reason of liability protection.How many kids come into a ED after a football game at school and the first thing ordered is a full head and neck CT scan? Seriously a $1K test to rule out a brain injury. The kid never blacked out the kid never lost consciousness or even wanted to go to the ED yet the SOP was a CT. The list goes on and on with every department having its list of SOP to prevent or reduce Mal-P losses if suits are brought. NONE of these tests prevent any disease or condition or for that matter alter the course of treatment but they are done in case some Esq. is reading the case files to decide on if he is going to proceed and sees the tests and realizes that they did the best they could and there was no breach in any standard in fact they went above the standard of care.That added “insurance” study test or the like wasn’t done for free it was paid for by every other person who is not paying their own fee for services. Be it Medicare, Medicaid, Insurance, or Union H&W.I don’t have a universal solution to the overbearing costs of Mal-P I like the new Georgia pilot program that shifts the entire process to a board and takes the lawyers out of the loop all together. There are no more 33% contingent fees a claim can be made by an individual the board is made up of all types including specialists in the area of need but also of non-medical folks and legal folks and there are no punitive damages allowed. The board uses funds paid into by the medical provision community in lieu of paying Mal-P insurance and the sum total of funds is at the discretion of the board for each case in question. They pay all “bad outcomes” as needed not requiring that malpractice was identified and there is no protracted need for years of discovery and the like. The board provides expert witnesses and the patient can represent themselves with no concern of breaking some ancient rule of order or legal paperwork snafu. The system is new it is only a few years old and so far it has the potential to help a LOTThere are no punitives there are no concerns of being labelled a bad doc in fact it was stated up front that every provider was likely to have some patient be paid some claim in their working history. It doesn’t require mal-P and on top of that it caps all claims at some very realistic limit after the actual medical bills are paid.May not be ideal and surely has the opponents saying but they went in fine and now are ruined for life but the cash paid in the current system is unsustainable and the cash never returns them to pre-incident levels so why affect the entire society for the action? It is not like ONLY the provider suffers we ALL suffer in higher costsThanks for the requestDr D

When it comes to due diligence, many investors focus on the financials and skip analyzing if the business makes sense as they know they don’t understand it in detail anyway.I have lots of good stories about this, but my favourites are from the health care sector.Patient Home MonitoringThis was a publicly traded stock, so you can examine the financials and statements in detail for yourself if you choose. Ticker was PHM on the TSX.Their pitch essentially was that they could cross-sell services home healthcare services and find both savings and low cost growth through that cross selling. Ok, intriguing and seemingly smart.Now, Patient Home Monitoring was not developing capabilities in-house. Instead, they were going out and purchasing tons of little companies. Ok, consolidation can be a valid strategy for profit and is often cheaper than doing it oneself.However, when looking at the acquisitions, there was no clear strategy for what they were doing.Patient Home was based in British Columbia and operated in California and Washington. They did blood monitoring and cardiology.They bought a diabetic testing supply company in Florida. — Fine.They bought a pulmonary company in South Carolina. — Huh?They bought another pulmonary company in Georgia. — Relax a bitThen they got a mobility provider in New Hampshire. — ???Cross-selling services by different companies in different areas was highly implausible. They were just buying stuff with no clear plan for putting it all together.This was all done during a 60 million dollar sale of stock.Right after, the two top officials sold all their shares and did not disclose it beforehand. It only came out in a later regulatory filing.The CEO was also vacationing in Africa on the investor conference call.A company which specialized in lending to doctors as they could not get financing.I can’t remember the name of this company, but their pitch was essentially that medical providers had difficulty getting financing even when they were paid by Medicare/Medicaid in the USA or the government in Canada and claimed that they could get 10–15% on these loans.Now, the governments of the United States and Canada are not exactly at risk of not paying their bills and there was no way that banks were ignoring 7–15% of the economy ( and they were not. I link to some of the bank departments for medical below).Physician Loans: Financing for Physicians & OptometristsScotiabank Healthcare+: Banking solutions for Practicing Physicians.Investors didn’t even dig into how doctors currently gained financing before the invested.They managed to raise at least 30 million dollars.