Dr. Lane’s Thoughts LXV

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Dr. Lane’s Thoughts LXV

1. Olives belong to a group of fruit called drupes, or stone fruits, and are related to mangoes, cherries, peaches, almonds, and pistachios. Olives are very high in vitamin E and other powerful antioxidants.  Learn to love your drupes!  I especially like kalamata olives.

2. We must never ‘get used to’ the many strange things that have happened in the USA since Trump came into office: the endless provocations to our national order and politics by people wearing the costumes of government but possessing unleashed ids to grab, steal, wrestle free, all the things that their emotional and powerful greed has made them decide should be theirs and theirs alone like so many 4-year olds deciding that everything is theirs: elections are only ‘real’ if they win, taxes are whatever you decide they are, the ability of ‘declassify’ documents of national security by mental will; ideas that everyone who is against your wants and needs being fulfilled should be lynched or seriously damaged, and so on.  Uncivilized people with the highest credentials repellent to the idea of simple human decency and fellowship.

We did not become a nation of wildly different people by deciding that our way is the only way; that others do not matter in the national discussion.  We made a decisions 250 years ago that we would strive to include every voice in the national discussion.  We must return to those ideals again – the meanest people should not win, the most guns do not win a national discussion.  Most of all, a lie repeated  enough times should not be taken seriously by educated men and women just because they are willing to accept national humiliations on behalf of their constituents just to appease their own needs to greater power.

3. Chiropractors have, overwhelmingly as I can see, become nuisances and regressives when it comes to improving their image.  They have become beholden to the biggest force stopping them from acting as true professional members of the healthcare pantheons: insurers.

Yes, the insurers pay for chiropractic care but they pay very poorly and, then, only after many delays many months after treatment.  They demand copious notes to ‘prove necessity’ which are just a practice in futility because they will, in the end, never pay the chiropractor no matter how much ‘proof’ is offered.

Image this: you are asked for your ID and you present your driver’s license.  Are you done identifying yourself.  You think that you are, right?  That would be true if the person you are speaking to actually intends to confirm your identity.

What if confirming your identity is what they intend not to do?  

So they say that this is not enough and ask if you have a passport, other picture ID, a copy of your utility bill (to prove residence), 2 sworn witnesses, and a copy of your birth certificate?  All this so that you can do a very mundane or customary event like buy groceries.

Now bring it to the world of chiropractors: they are asking to be paid for their work and insurers ask for documentation of treatment and only the insurer can decide if it is adequate in explaining treatment and (guess what?) it is never enough after 2 visits – which the insurers are very clear is all that they think any patient needs.

You can’t meet their level of requirements because they have no standards, they just want to waste your time and they have been explicitly informed by their supervisors that they are supposed to find ways to deny your request.  This is what it is for chiropractors to try to get paid by insurers.

Two poorly paid visits. Poorly paid because the chiropractor, after many years of being poorly paid, now does in 5 shitty minutes of weak care with the admonition to the patient ‘to be back in 2 days’ while the DC hurries off to see the 20 more patients he needs to see before the end of the day.  You see, he needs to see 20 patients and render bad care because he needs 2 things: (1) to get the $45 that the insurer pays and the $30 copy so that he can keep his doors open and (2) he needs to get as many visits out of the patient as possible even if the insurer will only pay for 2 of those visits because, sadly, getting the $30 copay is better than nothing.

Chiropractors did not set out to offer bad care.  They learned to be incredible doctors in their respective chiropractic college and manual adjusters in those schools but the twin emphases of poor reimbursement and strain of forcing patients to get only 5 minutes of care has made them either uncaring or forgetful in how to treat patients adequately.

I walked away from the insurers in 2019 and now charge $120 for a session with me.  You only need 1 visit and I will work on you for 35 minutes and fix you up.  Back in my office in 2 days? No, you have to do what I have trained you to do for 4 days before asking for another visit. [Patient do return to my office but after 1 year and only to bring me another patient they they love and desire to get the best care possible for these people].

Before anyone tries to inform me that I could seek more money out of insurers by hiring a billing clerk or hiring a billing service all I can say is (1) a clerk costs money which you need to pay out of the handful of additional payments that the clerk can wring out of insurers which will never be enough to pay their salary and (2) a billing company wants 8% of what they can get out of insurers which includes the ones that insurers easily pay [the first 2 visits] with no guarantee that the billing company can do better than you can in getting you paid – except now, you are giving the billers 8% of your money.  As a matter of fact, they probably can’t do any better than you except, now, you have even less money than before you hired them!

Since the insurers pay something [the first 2 visits] they cannot be brought to the attention of Banking and Insurance regulations because they do pay something.  They just don’t pay for everything that they are supposed to pay for.

And the insurers win.  Every time. 

The only answer: either force a standard of outside review of billing claims to emphasize a specific criteria for payment – not being reviewed by insurance employees who’s existence (and bonus structure) depends on denying the claims of chiropractors uniformly OR make your office cash (like I did) and give a middle finger to the insurers.

It took me 3 years but I finally wrestled myself free of the insurers.  That is how long it took for them to stop calling me to take their patients.  I also stopped being credentialed by their main database of credentialing (CAQH) which made it clear that they could not send their patients to an ‘uncredentialled’ chiropractor.

I was (and have always been) credentialed but I no longer share that information with the insurers.

So, I have won.  I guess. I won a game that was rigged against me by quitting the game.

4.  High levels of Omega-3 Linked to Better Brain Health. Omega-3s are found in fish and other seafood (especially cold-water fatty fish, such as salmon, mackerel, tuna, herring, and sardines) Nuts and seeds (such as flaxseed, chia seeds, and walnuts) Plant oils (such as flaxseed oil, soybean oil, and canola oil)

5. Have another cup: Coffee Linked to Longer Lifespan

6. Your oral health is intertwined with whole-body health: According to the American Academy of Periodontology, gum disease is also associated with diabetes and Alzheimer’s, and guys with gum disease are 49% more likely to develop kidney cancer and 54% more likely to develop pancreatic cancer. So, take this advice to heart: See your dental professionals regularly for cleaning and gum care.

7. I know that I am supposed to be sympathetic to people who are unable to  control themselves in their behavior because they are stating that they are some kind of ‘special needs’ but what are the limits of these disabilities in their normal interactions within the community?  Is their rudeness or loud demands for special accommodations where I can draw the line or do I also have to tolerate sarcasm, or longer times for test-taking, or excuses about why normal interactive rules do not apply to them – are these things also acceptable?  At what point can I just tell them to leave my office and seek counsel elsewhere and it is ok with the Americans with Disabilities Act or am I always going to subjected to unacceptable behavior?

8. I just read this political party platform and I can really stand behind it!

• 1. Provide federal assistance to low-income communities;
• 2. Protect Social Security;
• 3. Provide asylum for refugees;
• 4. Extend minimum wage;
• 5. Improve unemployment benefit system so it covers more people;
• 6. Strengthen labor laws so workers can more easily join a union;
• 7. Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of sex.

I am so glad to be on the side of the Democrats who want this to be the party platform.

What? This is NOT the Democratic platform for 2022? This is the REPUBLICAN Platform? And it is for 1956?

What the hell happened to the GOP that they went from this type of thinking (which is a normal way of thinking about improving the United States and also things I would stand behind 100%) with Dwight Eisenhower to, today, being the party of the bat-shit crazies like Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green, Ted Cruz, and all the other horrible people who are trying to ruin democracy in the United States in 2022?

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