Important News Page!!!!


Medicare news:

6/14 Update:  The reduction in payments has been allowed.  We will likely have to stop participating in Medicare.   We have already had to stop taking new patients.  PLEASE call your representatives and tell them what you think.

UPDATE:  The bill to fix this problem was delayed so Congress could take their spring vacations.  As a resulte, they have instructed Medicare to stop all payments for 10 days until they look at the problem again.  As it stands, rates have been reduced 21% as explained below, but the official change has been put on hold, along with payment to me for services we have already provided.  Please contact our Congressional representatives with your opinion on this travesty, which will doom Medicare if allowed to continue.

Due to a dysfunctional automatic adjustment built in to Medicare, payments for medical services will be decreased by 21% starting March 1, 2010.  If Congress allows this to happen, our practice will be forced to stop participating with Medicare (and all associated entities, including TriCare).  We do not make this decision lightly, but Medicare already pays very poorly and this amount of reduced payment would make it impossible for us to continue to do business and pay our bills.

For current patients with Medicare and related insurance plans, we will gladly continue to care for your medical needs but you will be responsible for payment.

You can also learn more about the problem here
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Parents:  Do not allow your child to use the internet unsupervised!

    Children today have unlimited access to information that they are not prepared to handle.  To make matters worse, predators have unprecedented access to our children. 

    Think it happens only in other places?  Think again, and Again  (or just look at the paper today, it is much to common)

    We strongly recommend that you do not allow your children unsupervised internet use.  

                                    This means no computers behind closed doors.   

Children do not have the skills or ability to resist temptation, or to recognize when they are in over their heads before it is too late.  As an oversimplified example: Imagine giving a 15-year-old the keys to a new Corvette and just telling them to "Drive Safely".  Doesn't sound like a good idea, does it? 
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-CDC "Swine"Flu (H1N1 Influenza A) information,  here

-MRSA information from the CDC.  (Click Here ) Yes, this is a serious problem.  But NO, this is not the plague that will cause the end of civilization like the media makes it seem. 

Medco admits guilt, settles drug fraud charges, read here

Medco is the largest prescription drug "manager" for health insurance plans.  Not surprisingly, they have been found to have taken kickbacks from drug companies to favor their particular drugs, and even more serious, submitted false claims to the government for drug charges.  Talk to your employer about your plan if your insurance deals with Medco and you have any reservations about it. 

 What exactly is a dietary "supplement"?
Unlike prescription medications, dietary supplements are foods, not drugs, and do not undergo rigorous FDA reviews for safety and effectiveness. Therefore, dietary supplements are not regulated as prescription medications.Mandated manufacturing standards are less stringent for dietary supplements than they are for medications.  

Tests by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) have “shown that contents of many supplements sold in retail stores don't match the label and that some supplements contain significantly less or more than the claimed amount of key ingredients.”

 Estrogen and Breast Cancer, the saga continues....

Further evaluation of infomation from recent large studies shows that women who take estrogen alone after menopause (who have had hysterectomy) do NOT have a higher risk of breask cancer, for at least 7 years.  In fact, those women had a slightly lower risk at that time, but not significantly.  Read more about the confusion regarding hormone replacement and this new information at these links: 

American cancer society article 1 

American cancer society article 2 

News Flash!:  Annual Pap Smears are not a "physical".

Many women believe they are covering all their Preventive Health needs by a yearly visit to their OB/GYN.  Unfortunately, these visits commonly do not address many other medical screening evaluations, such as heart disease, diabetes, or screening for cancer other than cervical or breast cancer.  Only your Primary Care Physician is trained to individualize your care.  Talk to us about what else you need to do to stay healthy.  Remember, we also do routine Pap smears, etc., so that you can cover everything in one visit.  

If you have insurance that will cover physicals, it will usually not cover more than one "preventive" visit yearly.  This means that if you have your pap smear somewhere else, then the rest of the physical that we would do would not be covered.  If you have the complete physical here, then it would.