Are We Being Told the #Truth About #COVID19?

 

The Imperative to Achieve National Improved Medicare for All

By Margaret Flowers, November 17 2020

Health care will be a major issue early in the new Biden/Harris administration. Unemployment is still high with over a million people applying for unemployment benefits last week and 42.6% of working age people without a job.

Video: Are We Being Told the Truth About COVID-19? By Dr. Sucharit Bhakdi, November 17 2020 According to Prof. Bhakdi, “this virus is no more deadly than a seasonal flu and for people under 70, it is even less deadly than the seasonal flu. If you are under 70, your chances of dying with this virus are less than 0.1 percent. In fact, there are about 0.05 percent.”

Don’t Call the Cops. Especially if Your Loved Ones Are Old, Disabled or Have Special Needs

How #Medicare #Doctors are Paid to Keep You #Sick

By Dr. Irvin Sahni

 

Video Transcript: How Medicare Doctors are Paid to Keep You Sick

Dr. Irvin Sahni: The bottom line is this. Doctors are incentivized the wrong way in my opinion; they’re incentivized the wrong way. So if you believe that the goal is to prevent disease to begin with rather than just simply treat it once it occurs. In other words, if you believe that being proactive is more important than being reactive, then you would agree with what I’m about to say.

If I see a patient who has Medicare, just because so many doctors see Medicare and the fee schedule is constant, I will bill Medicare based on certain variables. And some of those—it’s very complicated, of course, just like the tax code is very complicated.

But to simplify, there’s two very commonly used codes: it’s a 99213 and a 99214. A 99213 is just an evaluation visit, an existing patient I’ve been seeing them for years. And when he comes in I can bill a 992—a 12345, okay, almost never a one, almost never a five, things usually lay in the middle depending on what kind of doctor you are and how sick your patients are.

But an average, normal person comes in and I’m going to bill Medicare. If I bill Medicare at 99213 in Texas right now you get about 40 bucks. If I bill Medicare a 99214 I get about a 100 dollars – pretty big spread there. Sixty dollars is quite a bit. So if there’s something you could do to get an extra 60 dollars you’re going to do it.

One way I can convert a 99213 to a—it’s not totally simple. You have to have asked a lot of other questions, but the bottom line is at the very end you have to show medical decision making. It’s called medical decision making.

So I can sit there and ask a bazillion questions. But if I just say “take an aspirin” and I’ll never see