A Word to Patients

• Do you view today's medical bills with utter disbelief?
• Do you wait weeks to only get five minutes and a prescription?
• Are your healthcare choices increasingly restricted?

Americans have lost confidence in their healthcare system. Once held in high esteem, physicians are now often viewed with suspicion. The cherished patient/physician relationship is fading. Change is inevitable. The only question is, what change will that be?

Physicians for Reform is a non-profit organization that strives to keep the patient at the center of American healthcare. Patients and physicians must work together to find new solutions to our healthcare concerns. If we do not take the lead, federal bureaucracy will consume us.

For example, Medicare recently changed the guidelines for in-patient rehabilitation. Previously, orthopedic patients such as those having knee replacement qualified for in-patient rehabilitation. Now, these patients no longer "meet the governments criteria" for in-patient rehabilitation unless enough patients with diagnosis such as strokes were recently admitted. The government now mandates many of these patients received their rehabilitation in nursing homes. These means how you are treated depends on who your rehab physician admitted before he or she saw you, not what is best for you as an individual.

A rehab unit in Atlanta was recently fined approximately $2.5 million because Medicare felt the rehab unit did not following these rules closely enough. Because of the onerous nature of these regulations and severity of the punishment if not followed a rehab specialist at a local hospital left rehab medicine to practice hospice care. This is the result of government-rationed healthcare simply to save money. Again, whoever pays holds power.

History teaches us that under such a system, physicians will become "tools of the State" rather than healers of the sick. "State" guidelines will decide who receives what treatment, stripping patients and physicians of their ability to make healthcare decisions together.

Many Americans feel healthcare is overregulated, but this is only a glimpse of what is in store if America adopts government regulated "universal healthcare." To rebuild our failing healthcare system, patients must work together with physicians who remember the ancient Oath of Hippocrates.

What you can do.

1. Join our team.
   Physicians for Reform is a grassroots non-profit advocacy group designed to give average working Americans a voice in the healthcare debate. If you wish to keep the needs of the patient at the center of American healthcare, join today. This web site will help you stay informed and, on rare occasion, we may ask you to call you elected official to voice your opinion.
   
   At the end of the day politicians depend on voters to stay in power. They will listen if we stand together.
   
   
2. Tell a friend.
   For this effort to work we must have the support of tens of thousands of voters, our patients. If you believe in our message ask three friends to join. Merely let us know you want to stay informed.
   
   
3. There are no membership fees, dues, or other obligations. If you want to help financially the support is welcome, but purely optional. Contributions to this non-profit organization are not tax-deductible as we are and issue advocacy group. If you wish to make larger contributions and receive a tax deduction please notify us and we can refer you to an educational foundation you can support.