Laffincrow

Free Leonard Peltier NOW Oliver Shanti Project youtube.com/watch?v=IhrAbQ… via @youtube

Be grateful for ALL that you have, most importantly, Life itself.

“I didn’t write those penalties.” - Pete Stark The Stark Law prohibits a physician from referring patients to an entity in which they have a financial interest. That sounds neutral but it isn’t. A hospital-employed orthopedic surgeon who refers every post-operative patient to the hospital’s owned SNF, physical therapy, imaging center, and home health agency has a financial interest in every one of those referrals. His salary, his productivity bonus, and his continued employment depend on staying within the system. None of that triggers Stark. The bona-fide employment exception covers it entirely. An independent orthopedic surgeon who owns an MRI with two partners? Well, they would have to go through a full stark analysis and legal review with complex written arrangements and ongoing compliance infrastructure. One technical violation of Stark and the False Claims Act exposure is existential. These scenarios show the same financial conflict with radically different legal treatment. The consequences for patients are hard to ignore. A recent NORC survey found that 61% of employed physicians have moderate or no autonomy to make referrals outside their system, and nearly half said they adjust treatment options based on organizational incentives. Hospital employment doesn’t eliminate the financial conflict of the referral relationship. It just hides it inside a compensation structure Stark never touches. Marc Greenberg, MD, an orthopedic surgeon in Baltimore, put it plainly in Becker’s this week: “We’ve created a system where for-profit entities can have healthcare ownership. But the people who took an oath to serve the patient — who’ve shown a commitment to caring — can’t.” There is no federal prohibition on hospitals requiring employed physicians to refer within the system. No law prevents health systems from structuring compensation, call coverage, or scheduling to steer referrals to owned facilities. No equivalent of Stark governs the institutional referral relationship at all. Congressman Stark was trying to protect patients from corrupted referrals. What his law produced was a system where the most powerful referral relationships in American healthcare are completely unregulated and the physicians most accountable to patients are the ones most restricted.

Exactly.

@BstKidEva Thanks! Me too. The colors are 🔥.

@Laffincrow I love this 😁

Perfect fit!

Happy 91st birthday to Carol Kaye! She is one of the most prolific recorded bass guitarists in rock and pop music, playing on an estimated 10,000 recordings in a career spanning over 65 years.

A patient with insurance paid $790 for a knee X-ray series. The self-pay rate at the same facility: $112 Insurance did not protect her. It exposed her. There are some good websites to find these prices. I use radiologyassist.com Who else produces transparent prices where I can buy X-rays and other imaging tests?

That Pyrex Pink Stems pattern bowl went for $752!!🫣

A gorgeous sun pillar a few minutes ago in the cereal city. Let's go! @JeffPorterWX

@PermaGoddess Beautiful work!

Knitting is one of the hobbies that help me keep sane in an insane world. It is essential to nurture one’s good mental health in order to keep a clear mind to see what’s really going on!

100% agree! I LOVE knitting.

@DutchRojas @HeathVeuleman @PhysGrassroots @AmerMedicalAssn So much swamp bs we need to dress in hip boots daily.

@HeathVeuleman @PhysGrassroots @AmerMedicalAssn More swamp bullshit.

Did you know that @PhysGrassroots is yet another advocacy program funded by the @AmerMedicalAssn ?

Some day!😂 youtube.com/shorts/rqcN-XP…

@ykramerezha @MatrixMysteries You make assumptions. I do not lie. You may not pay up front. But, you pay in taxes.

@Laffincrow @MatrixMysteries Anonymous posters lie and disinform or hide their ignorance. The quality of their posts are low. In Canada, a visit would cost nothing. Your acronyms do not help! Who owns your hospital? Who did you vote for president?

“I had FULL insurance, stayed in-network, followed every rule—and I still got SCREWED.” He went in for routine bloodwork. Nothing optional. Nothing fancy. Then the bill arrived: $12,315.58. “Health insurers aren’t just broken—they feed on people who do everything right.”

@ykramerezha @MatrixMysteries Anonymity is my choice. What does this have to do w the price of healthcare? Our urgent care price went from $168 to $966 estimate d/t FACILITY Fees that only nfp systems can capitalize on billing as HOPD. Theres your enormous expenditure.

@Laffincrow @MatrixMysteries Are you can an economist? Our competition does not work. Canada, Denmark, Singapore, the Netherlands, and Japan do much better. You provided a prescription while anonymous. We spend more on health care than the next ten countries COMBINED. Our results lag behind our peers.

@ykramerezha @MatrixMysteries Honestly, I'm not the data girl. I don't know this answer. I'm a front line girl. What I see is NOT working for the majority. Costs are driven up to cover govt ins losses. We all pay more. More govt intervention is not the answer. It ties the hands of physicians & patients.

@Laffincrow @MatrixMysteries Which successful country with better than American health outcomes relies on competition?

This YouTuber, Benn Jordan discovered that a surveillance company named Flock Safety who currently has over 90K camera deployed throughout the US, is severely compromised. He found that many cameras are live-streaming directly to the open internet.

Your employer spends $23,000 a year on your family’s health insurance. You have never seen the contract. You did not choose the plan. You cannot read the formulary. You can comparison shop a television for six hours but you are not allowed to comparison shop your own surgery. The system calls this coverage.

@HeyEpic spring upgrade is an epic fail. They made an inefficient system even more inefficient. Let's just add 30 more clicks. They obviously do not make decisions w end users in mind. 🤨