Mayo Clinic Dropping Medicare Patients in Glendale, Arizona

The Mayo Clinic, praised by President Barack Obama as a national model for efficient health care, will stop accepting Medicare patients as of today, January 5th, at one of its primary-care clinics in Arizona, saying the U.S. government pays too little.
More than 3,000 patients eligible for Medicare, the government’s largest health-insurance program, will be forced to pay cash if they want to continue seeing their doctors at a Mayo family clinic in Glendale, northwest of Phoenix, said Michael Yardley, a Mayo spokesman. The decision, which Yardley called a two-year pilot project, won’t affect other Mayo facilities in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota.
Mayo’s move to drop Medicare patients may be copied by family doctors, some of whom have stopped accepting new patients from the program, said Lori Heim, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, in a telephone interview yesterday. “Many physicians have said, ‘I simply cannot afford to keep taking care of Medicare patients,’” said Heim, a family doctor who practices in Laurinburg, North Carolina. “If you truly know your business costs and you are losing money, it doesn’t make sense to do more of it.”
This makes me wonder what more is coming down the pike and that organizations like Patients With Passports will begin seeing more interest in teir services..
I’ll stay on top of this and write more as I learn about it.
Have a good Tuesday.
Blessings,
Rick

Help Through The Internet

It amazes me at just how intertwined the Internet is. Through my blog lately I have been able to steer a brother with prostate cancer to the protoninfo site where he is currently corresponding with others who are walking through the same experience that he is.
As I read their correspondence with each other, the Natioanl Cancer Center in Seoul, South Korea was mentioned. If you read my blog occasionally, you’re familiar that I focused on the NCC in December after receiving an email from a representative with Patients With Passports, a group that helps people to take advantage of treatment there. He had asked me to include information about the NCC and through those posts, someone else now knows about them.
It’s obvious that with the Internet, the world has become very, very small.
I continue to be amazed at all of this technology that helps so many people.
Have a good Monday.
Blessings,
Rick

Happy New Year!!

Wishing you a good 2010.
Low PSAs to all.
Have a good weekend.
Blessings,
Rick

Thomas Sowell Has It Figured Out

I have wondered for a while when the American public is going to wake up to what's happening in our country with health care and how it will impact Proton Beam Therapy. PBT is more costly than other treatments, but with far fewer side effects. When we come to a place with health care where money is the prevailing factor, I'm afraid those who are trying to ram just any bill through Congress so the President isn't viewed as impotent, they will begin cutting for money's sake with little thought for care. Health care shouldn't be about what's best for Obama. It should be about what's best for the American people.

This article by Thomas Sowell is a real eye opener.

Have a good Wednesday.
Blessings,
Rick

Fifth Christmas Post Treatment

This was my fifth Christmas to celebrate since finishing up on my cancer treatment. Thanks to Proton Beam Therapy, I was able to celebrate knowing that I am cured of cancer and I didn't have to radically alter my life to do it.
I feel so sorry for men who choose options only on the recommendation of their doctors and refuse to do their own homework.

I received a very nice Christmas card from a family of someone who found my blog and needed hope for their father. One quote. "I believe you may have changed the entire course of his life and I am so grateful for your knidness."

Sometimes when I blog, I catch myself wondering if there is anyone out there. When that happens, I will remind myself of this card and know that I have a mission to do and need to just try to help and catch the blessing of it later down the road.

Have a good Monday.
Blessings,
Rick

Merry Christmas To All

I hope you are enjoying the blessings of Jesus' birth on this Christmas day.

Have a good Friday.
Blessings,
Rick

Thank God For Our Fighting Men and Women and Merry Christmas to Each Of Them.