Category: healthcare

bookmark_borderDoctors’ orders: Avoid insurance

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Many physicians, fed up with patient overload and filing claims, are minimizing insurance-based coverage and offering round-the-clock service for a retainer.

By Parija B. Kavilanz, CNNMoney.com senior writer

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Like a lot of their patients, doctors are sick of long waits in the waiting room and dealing with insurance companies.

That’s why a growing number of primary care physicians are adopting a direct fee-for-service or “retainer-based” model of care that minimizes acceptance of insurance. Except for lab tests and other special services, your insurance plan is no good with them.

In a retainer practice, doctors charge patients an annual fee ranging from $1,500 to as high as over $10,000 for round-the-clock access to physicians, sometimes including house calls.

Other services included in the membership are annual physicals, preventive care programs and hospital visits.

Doctors argue that this model cuts down their patient load, allows them to spend more time per patient and help save the system money.

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bookmark_borderNews from The Center for Personal Reflection

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Water, water everywhere

I live on the beautiful Tohickon Creek (ed. in Bucks County PA). The first year I lived here, that first Spring, I saw a variety of fish, turtles and a blue heron who makes his/her home a few yards downcreek from the house. In the Summer, when I walked the creek, I found shards on the creek floor from an old, now defunct, glass factory some small shells and beautiful stones. It was lovely. But something was wrong and I wouldn’t know what it was until four years later. Because, now when Spring comes there are otters, beavers, mussels and many many more fish and turtles. The problem was pollution and as the creek cleans up, life is returning to it. It is exciting, reaffirming and hope-filled to see nature return our waterways to vitality because water is essential for all life on this unique planet we inhabit….this planet we share with the Earth’s flora and fauna and, moreover, this planet that we are bound to protect.
Besides, we NEED water to have healthy minds, bodies, and spirit….never mind the rest of the Flora and Fauna. Lets get selfish here. We NEED water and it behooves us to be the stewards we’re meant to be for our sakes as well as for the rest of life. Selfish is good sometimes.

So lets read on about one of our most valuable assets.

Seeing Water

In the Journal of Active Aging, Sept. 2005, Dr. Oladele Ogunselian, a social ecologist talked abut the effect that water, trees, and flowers have on positive attitudes. He maintains that there is a positive link between a restorative environment and emotional well-being. His research has lead him to determine that bodies of water are one of the environmental features that are viewed as enhancing emotional health by subjects in the tests. Furthermore, in these studies, landscapes with complex designs were not seen as healing. the Term topophillia refers to a study of environmental perception, attitudes and values, including the emotional affective bond between environment and human beings. I suspect this may be true because there is a beautiful creek that flows past my house and it is a source of healing and peace to me and from what other say…well, I suspect it may be true.

Hearing Water
fountain The sound of water has a soothing effect on the human brain. There is an area in the human brain located near the brain stem called the inferior colliculus where cells respond to sound, (frequencies, rate and volume) and process the sounds and identify them. This area of the brain interprets these sounds sending signals to other parts of the brain causing neurological firings to occur. Water calms! Researchers Monti Escari and Heather Read are doing research on the effects of sounds, including the sounds of flowing water on brain function linking sounds with mental wellness. While they are doing their research we know that there are already CD’s of flowing, dripping, streaming and swirling water sounds, table top fountain and wall fountains are found in lobbies, living rooms, offices and even in the salon where I have my hair done. Very soothing. Close your eyes and think about lying on the beach, feeling the warmth of the sun and listening to the waves crashing on the sand. If it weren’t so soothing it would be intoxicating. And, the quantity of water oceanside provides an enormous amount of negative ions that creates a positive mental state. Why, there are even screensavers with pictures of water accompanied by the sounds to calm and sooth when you turn on your computer.

Drinking Water

More research. The brain is 85% water (although some say 78% but whose counting). Water regulates body temperature, carries nutrients and oxygen to the blood, cushions joints, protects organs and tissues, removes toxic waste and more. Dehydration leaves us tired, irritable and foggy, can lead to poor stress management, depression and can induce anxiety. (That 3:00pm slump??? Dehydration!) Furthermore, lace of water creaates a physical reduction of the ionic composition of the fluid surrounding brain cells or neurons which swirls the brain into over activity resulting in a headache.

Feeling Water: Warm water when it is cold outside, cool wataer on a hot day. Doesn’t get better than that. But more good news about water. When I have been exposed to toxic energy I just get in the shower and let the water carry the negative energy down the drain, into the earth, were I belive and hope it get neutralized. Its a little like washing your energy field. Another benefit from being in water is that it removes the pull of gravity relieving your body of stress and physical weight on joints, muscles and tendons. So showering in the morning starts the day our refreshed. If it was a hard day take another soapless shower at night, (don’t want to dry your skin out) and float any chance you get.

Water abounds in our lives so use it to provide the mental and physical well-being it offers. The Center for Personal Reflection also is a resource for mental and physical well-being for individuals and couples. As you plan out your strategy for continued growth please avail yourselves of all the Center offers. Stay well.

Marianne Harms, LCSW
Center for Personal Reflection
3694 Spruce Hill Road
Ottsville, PA 18942

bookmark_borderAMA Ends 72-Year Policy, Says Marijuana has Medical Benefits

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By Americans for Safe Access, Medical Marijuana Therapeutics/Research

HOUSTON — The American Medical Association (AMA) voted today to reverse its long-held position that marijuana be retained as a Schedule I substance with no medical value. The AMA adopted a report drafted by the AMA Council on Science and Public Health (CSAPH) entitled, “Use of Cannabis for Medicinal Purposes,” which affirmed the therapeutic benefits of marijuana and called for further research. The CSAPH report concluded that, “short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.” Furthermore, the report urges that “the Schedule I status of marijuana be reviewed with the goal of facilitating clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines, and alternate delivery methods.”

The change of position by the largest physician-based group in the country was precipitated in part by a resolution adopted in June of 2008 by the Medical Student Section (MSS) of the AMA in support of the reclassification of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I substance. In the past year, the AMA has considered three resolutions dealing with medical marijuana, which also helped to influence the report and its recommendations. The AMA vote on the report took place in Houston, Texas during the organization’s annual Interim Meeting of the House of Delegates. The last AMA position, adopted 8 years ago, called for maintaining marijuana as a Schedule I substance, with no medical value.

“It’s been 72 years since the AMA has officially recognized that marijuana has both already-demonstrated and future-promising medical utility,” said Sunil Aggarwal, Ph.D., the medical student who spearheaded both the passage of the June 2008 resolution by the MSS and one of the CSAPH report’s designated expert reviewers. “The AMA has written an extensive, well-documented, evidence-based report that they are seeking to publish in a peer-reviewed journal that will help to educate the medical community about the scientific basis of botanical cannabis-based medicines.” Aggarwal is also on the Medical & Scientific Advisory Board of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the largest medical marijuana advocacy organization in the U.S.

The AMA’s about face on medical marijuana follows an announcement by the Obama Administration in October discouraging U.S. Attorneys from taking enforcement actions in medical marijuana states. In February 2008, a resolution was adopted by the American College of Physicians (ACP), the country’s second largest physician group and the largest organization of doctors of internal medicine. The ACP resolution called for an “evidence-based review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule I controlled substance to determine whether it should be reclassified to a different schedule. “The two largest physician groups in the U.S. have established medical marijuana as a health care issue that must be addressed,” said ASA Government Affairs Director Caren Woodson. “Both organizations have underscored the need for change by placing patients above politics.”

Though the CSAPH report has not been officially released to the public, AMA documentation indicates that it: “(1) provides a brief historical perspective on the use of cannabis as medicine; (2) examines the current federal and state-based legal envelope relevant to the medical use of cannabis; (3) provides a brief overview of our current understanding of the pharmacology and physiology of the endocannabinoid system; (4) reviews clinical trials on the relative safety and efficacy of smoked cannabis and botanical-based products; and (5) places this information in perspective with respect to the current drug regulatory framework.”

bookmark_borderHealthcare Reform is Economic Malpractice

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Texas Straight Talk – A Weekly Column
Rep. Ron Paul (R) – TX 14

As Washington continues debating healthcare reform the rest of the country is primarily concerned about jobs and the economy. It is still uncertain what policies will be implemented, but I am certain about one thing: It will only further devastate our economy and our dollar.

The leadership has come up with a proposal they are confident will be what they consider fiscally responsible, only to have it scored as nearly twice as expensive by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Estimates of past healthcare spending programs have been off by as much as 100 percent so there is no telling what the actual cost will be.

The past century should have taught us one thing: that government intervention is expensive. Government programs lend themselves so easily to waste, fraud and abuse. Combine that with overall inefficiency and it all adds up to a hefty price tag for the taxpayer, with not much leftover for actual services. An outright takeover of an entire sector of the economy, especially one as important as healthcare, is something that we just cannot afford for the government to do right now. Not to mention the fact that it is completely unconstitutional. But Washington insists on torturing the numbers and tinkering around the edges rather than facing this truth.

If healthcare reform does indeed pass, we should not be under the illusion that it will be free. The money to pay for it will have to come from somewhere. They say they will get the money from cutting waste, fraud and abuse, but all of that is seemingly intrinsic to government programs. Since they want to expand the government’s reach we have to assume we will be trading waste, fraud and abuse for waste, fraud and abuse with a bigger budget. The powers that be have insisted the money won’t come from higher taxes, it won’t come from rationing of care, and it won’t come from higher premiums. This can only then put more pressure on the Fed to print the money out of thin air. We already have a weakening dollar. They are accelerating everything that weakened it in the past. Adding this new, monumental pressure could very well be the straw that will break the dollar’s back.

Foreign creditors are already nervous about continuing to invest in the US because of our skyrocketing debt. The explosion of debt that is certain to accompany the enactment of this national health care bill can only add to that nervousness.

Ironically, enactment of the health care bill could help the cause of liberty by hastening the day when Congress is forced by economic circumstances to stop increasing the welfare-warfare state and return to the Constitution.

There are many problems with our current healthcare system, to be sure. There are many tragic stories to be told. However, we need to look at the root of our problems in order to address them properly. More government intervention and bureaucracy injected into healthcare will take a flawed system and make immeasurably worse.