Who Does Your Doctor Represent? Is it You?

We want to let you know your physician may not be working for you.  Dr. Maulfair is receiving letters from Medicare Provider’s advising him as to which drugs are going to be approved as of January 1, 2013; this letter is specific for a patient and lists the drug Dr. Maulfair is prescribing for her and lists the drug that he SHOULD select.  In the case of one patient currently taking “Advair” he is being advised that as of the above date the covered drug will be “Symbicort”.  Do you think the group that made the list looked at the side effects of the drugs chosen compared to the ones left off the list?  Your doctor should decide which drug based on your history and current difficulty, what if the drug chosen by the list has as a side effect intestional bleeding and you have had bleeding in your digestive tract in the past?  Keep your eyes pealed after the 1st of  January.  You might be told you have to switch medications by your physician if you are a Medicare recipient because your physician is receiving letters advising reimbursement for “Formulary Drugs”;  drugs not on this list will cost patients more out-of-pocket expense.  As part of the changes within Obama Care perhaps pharmaceutical companies negotiated certain provisions.  Dr. Maulfair, as an example often recommends the use of older generic blood pressure medications as they have had years of success and fewer side effects than the newer drugs.  We are being advised to change our prescription practices as of January 1 to accommodate these new regulations.  Make sure you let your physician know what your preferences are or you too could wide up with a group choosing your meds for your doctor.

We are not a “participating” medical practice due to these mandates.  We work for our patients solely. Our practice includes recommendations for dietary and nutrient programs and other body friendly medical treatments which are not normally covered by insurance.  Insurance coverage has traditionally covered doctor visits, surgeries and medications so if you are physician who offers more than those treatments your patients have had to pay out of pocket for your care.  This type of care is usually less expensive and certainly more effective since no one has a deficiency of prozac but might have a deficiency of nutrients including B-Complex, our care is helpful and lasting and people get better and get off their drugs.  When someone is healthy they use fewer health care dollars. Surprise.  You would think the stockholders and owners of insurance companies would catch on but they do not.

People need to wake up to the fact that run of mill medical care is not putting your health first or even giving you the best recommendations.  I cannot figure out why physicians put up with this but they do.  Perhaps it is because most independent physicians are now employees of giant hospital interests with their far reaching community medical centers.  As an employee you do not pay your malpractice insurance premium, the company does.  You see, with the government telling a physician what can and cannot be done for patients when physicians comply and  it goes wrong a patient cannot sue the government, but will sue the doctor.  Your doctor was following the “standard of care” so it will be hard to prevail against him/her .    You realize, I am quite sure, that medical modalities that help you recover from chronic health problems are outside the standard of care, right?  If you have migraines the suggestion that you take magnesium and other minerals and watch your diet are outside the “standard of care”, yet they could actually keep you from becoming a drug addict.

I find it very hard to tolerate the government and pharmaceutical interests telling me what I can do with my own health.  I also think some of this mess is brought on by our own actions or lack of action.  You do not have car insurance pick up the tab every time you need tires or an oil change, yet, people are used to insurance picking up the tab for their doctors visits and meds.  If your employer pays most of your health care premium and you have little out-of-pocket expense when you go to the doctor you may not even know what the visit cost was because you are not paying for it.  Who is better equipped to drive the market place and demand fair prices but the consumer? You support your choices with your pocketbook.  You would not tolerate someone telling you which grocery store, gas station, or your pet’s veterinarian you were allowed to patronize would you?  You would not think you were part of the free American society.  Yet all of us put up with idea that our government supports an insurance company that chooses our doctor based on the list, and the doctor choosing our meds based on the approved list, and we accept the idea that whatever the recommendation it is, it is all that can be done based on what is payed for by others!!!

I want to live in a country where I am free to choose my own physician and my own treatments.  I dread the day when I might be a victim of  a car accident and must accept what will be paid for by the group, I do not want to be told what will and must be done for me.  I was in a car accident, I was told I must have spinal surgery and I refused.  I am pain free and I can walk  just fine.  If I would have accepted the “standard of car” for my injuries I would be on pain meds with rods in my back!  Part of the reason for that is the collaboration between the orthopedic physician (who eventually helped me my way) and an over zealous neurosurgeon.  Join me in supporting freedom of choice in all things including what do to for and with our own bodies.  I am happy with health insurance for critical and acute care and I am happy with health savings accounts and I am willing to suffer financial difficulties to retain my freedom to direct my own life.

Wishing you the best in health,

Coleen Maulfair

A Number of Messes Caused by Health Care Policy

First of all you may not know the full extent of care available from the different medical specialities.  Common treatment and diagnostic options are forwarded in strong marketing campaigns by giant medical/pharmaceutical  business interests and those become the most utilized by patients and supported by insurance companies.  You know those options well.
What may be a confusion for you is the growing, changing paradigm of complementary, alternative, wholistic, holistic, anti-aging, natural, functional medicine!  My point. This exciting and fruitful side of medical care has been unsuccessful in naming itself clearly to identify a parting of the ways with conventional common medical care, while remaining “medical” in nature.   There are many self care treatment modalities that are very effective but there are also licensed physicians ready to help you when self care is not quite enough.  People who are responsible for their life style and health may find that they need something more than self care at times and some think there is no avenue for non-pharmaceutical treatment within the community of medical centers and licensed physicians.  But…there is.

In company with Dr. Maulfair there are hundreds of doctors across this great country, probably within a few hours drive of  most locations, who are dedicated to finding the real causes of their patients ills, who choose searching diagnostic tools that look at the function of the body and whose treatment modalities turn away from medical drugs towards the building blocks of real health.  Did you know that if you had muscle aches and pains or high blood pressure you could benefit from a series of intravenous treatments of magnesium?  Did you know that the same treatment can relieve the problems of depression for some?  Were you aware you could request bio-identical hormones to make those years of passage full and free from sleep disturbances and tiredness as well as benefit your heart and circulatory system?

Our nation has recently consolidated physicians practicing medicine into hospital consortiums and with those connections the private, independent physician is harder to find.  This is a planned attack on the freedom of physicians and yours.  With hospitals as the umbrella of all these docs, you do not have to write hundreds of letters to each doc when you want to regulate something within the health care system, you write one letter to the hospital and control hundreds through the hospital policy.  There are protocols approved by the government that physicians must follow when presented with specific symptoms with a list of pharmaceutical drugs to recommend so physicians are losing the decision making battle.  They are pressured to conform more than ever.

No independent physician has an objection to emergency medical care or surgeries and medication when it is called for but those treatment modalities have a very poor track record in helping people with the problems of aging and chronic health problems.  No one disagrees with the use of pharmeceuticals when they are needed but ignoring other options, that do not harm the body but support the immune system and health, is dangerous.

Exert your freedom and speak up, talk to your physician and to your politicians.  We should demand health care and not disease care.  Let’s prevent a few things ourselves but when faced with a persistent problem see someone licensed or not for a gentler answer.  Join us in demanding control of your choices over your own body and your health.

Health Care Notes...key information

Just a quick note to let you know there are things you can do to stay ahead of the health care reforms and all the problems they will inject into your life.  Please visit Americans for Prosperity for the place and time of meetings in Delaware and Pennsyslvania planned to help inform you about the aspects of Obamacare you may not know about.
Jon Rappoport has a series of articles whose content you do not want to miss.  He is a health freedom fighter of immense understanding and the information in his blog is a must read, go here, www.jonrappoport.wordpress.com.   There is also a group of physicians and surgeons website is aapsonline.org  They have information on the content of this law and what can be done to reflect the blows to your health.  This is a group of free enterprise physicians and very smart dialogue you can access and refer your doctors to as well.

Our polls show that people want and expect their physicians to get to the bottom of their health problems.  They want doctors who search for and find the cause of their problems and not just offer a drug to mask symptoms.  Is that inline with your interests?

There is no better advice to give at this point in our country’s history than to implore you to seek information on the content of the health care law that is about to descend on us.  The harm is clear and we are dedicated to help in the dessemination of the sources of truth on the content of this complicated and complicating law.  Your health and the health of generations to come depends on your actions.  Please, please inform yourself and others.

Private doctor and patient relationships

Dr. Maulfair and so many doctors across this nation have spent a lifetime in a career they love.  They love helping people improve their health and avoid bad outcomes.  They can do this because they understand functional medicine and they wonder why people have symptoms so they look for underlying causes.  Not quick to use pharmaceutical drugs they keep their patients safe and healthy.  When you remove the impediments to good health you help people for real.  It takes longer, the visits are longer, the relationships with patients are more extensive but it works.  They even talk to their patients about money and their patients know the charges because many of them pay out of pocket.
If health care is changed to restrict the practice of medicine you will loose these doctors because they will not fit in the pattern and you can’t have that in a system run by someone other than the doctor and patient.  Take a look. The problem with the current system is the middlemen making money off the patient and then off the doctor.   I think these lawyers, rather lawmakers, in DC should try this government run health care system in the form of a  pilot program on the legal system first.  Let’s develop mandated insurance programs for legal troubles and then the insurance programs can work like malpractice insurance.  The insurance company decides outcomes.  How about that?  Why not let them try this on their profession first.  Let the companies set their fees and then pay them less each year and start to tell them how to defend their clients or go after the offenders.

I remember when freedom and personal responsiblity were important.  I worked in the insurance industry when it first took over health care.  I remember the early days of the “going rate charged” in an area.  The company would only pay the customary allowable rate.  Flat playing field for all but the “flat” part was not designed by the players but the payors.

Find an independent physician and watch your health improve and the actual costs go down.  Use health savings accounts with high deductible insurance policies and you will have more say over your care and you will save money.  Avoid anyone outside the exam room telling you what treatments are best and what you need, do your own research and find treatments that avoid the health robbing effects of pharmaceutical drugs.