Exclusive MD featured on NBC Action News Tonight at 5pm

Check out our latest interview with Cynthia Newsome about how Exclusive MD fits with current health care reform. The clip is located on the right as the featured video of the month.

Exclusive MD featured on NBC Action News Tonight at 5pm

How certain are you about the food you buy from the supermarket?

My wife and I watched this film, Food Inc, this weekend and I already shared my brief viewpoints on it on Facebook, but I thought we learned so much that it is worth sharing more information. Here is a brief synopsis:

In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Here are some interesting statistics also featured in the film:
-- In 1972 the Food and Drug Administration conducted 50,000 food safety inspections; by 2006 that number was down to 9,164.
-- In 2007 there were 73,000 people sickened from the E.coli virus.
-- The average American eats over 200 pounds of meat a year.
-- 70 percent of processed foods have some genetically modified ingredient.
-- One in three Americans born after 2000 will contract early-onset diabetes; among minorities the rate will be one in two.

I know that shopping for all natural or all organic is typically more expensive. But we are in control as consumers. If we all choose to purchase these products, the market will shift and make these options more affordable. The true cost is your health. With rising cost of health care, the best thing to do is to stay healthy. My advice is to make sure you not only know what you are eating but where it is coming from. Apparently there are a lot of businesses that spend a lot of money to make sure we do not know this information. Remember, you have 3 times a day where you can place your vote.

How certain are you about the food you buy from the supermarket?

21.2% Cut on Medicare Reimbursement Starts Today!...April Fools or Not?

Unfortunately this is not an April Fools Joke. After a few small extensions, Congress has put into effect a 21.2% cut on Medicare that affects both patients and physicians. For those that do not understand how this affects everyone, let me explain. First of all, Medicare sets the fees and everyone (other private insurers) uses their fees for a benchmark to set theirs around. What that means is that if Medicare decides to reimburse less to physicians for services, than typically all other third party insurers will follow in suit. Did you know that currently in the traditional model of health care delivery that for every $1.00 that a physician charges he can only expect $0.40 in return. With this cut potentially the $0.40 may turn into $0.32 to a dollar. In the world of primary care, in the private sector, that cut may prove to be so devastating that it causes some to close their doors. When cuts like this occur, one of the ways for doctors to improve or stabilize their bottom end is to see MORE patients. Currently the national average of doctor's time spent with patients is 4-7 minutes per visit. So the only way to feasibly see more patients is to work more hours in the day or decrease the actual time spent per patient. Both of those options are not good for patients or doctors.

The real question is how does this 21.2% Medicare cut affect Exclusive MD. It doesn't! We will still offer the same service averaging our annual visit times at around 60-90 minutes and offering the same great service we started with at an affordable cost.

21.2% Cut on Medicare Reimbursement Starts Today!...April Fools or Not?