business corruption
In the business of healthcare, doing business as usual means getting the most dollars for each diagnosis and procedure. Corruption is common as providers charge for work that they did not do.
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The Disability Industrial Complex – a case of bad knees
Dr. Brad Rosedale quickly scanned the chart of a 48-year-old social worker who was claiming disability for an injury to her knees while on a work assignment. “Ms. Skruge come on in please,” he announced to the waiting room. A woman in a purple coat grasped two ski poles from against the wall, planted them in front of her, and hoisted herself out of the chair with a moan. Hyperventilating, she shuffled stiffly toward the man in the white coat, and they filed into an exam room. “Please have a seat,” he said, and positioned them in chairs on opposite sides of a small desk. It was a busy day,…
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The burden of the path to abundance
Brad thought he finally had everything just right. Nothing was missing; all the deep spiritual work was over, and now it was paying off. He had a happy marriage to the pretty and devoted Elly, who was a final answer to his old problem of finding a soulmate. They enjoyed a view across the Bay where they could see Oakland and the San Mateo bridge from the balcony of their penthouse condo on the peninsula. The clinic patients were under control, and he had started doing Independent Medical Examinations for industrial injury insurance companies. A typical work week was 60-65 hours, some of it at home where he could write…
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Wanderers to a Buddhist Temple
The naked monk, holding nothing but a plastic bucket, stepped into the small pool at the foot of the little waterfall. Brad could hear him gasp as the shock of the icy water went through his body. Following the path of the flashlight held by another monk, he waded in and sat down, the water up to chest level. Then he began chanting the Heart Sutra. “Kan ji zai bo sa gyo- jin han-nya ha ra mi ta ji…” As he chanted, he pulled the bucket through the freezing water and splashed it onto his face and chest, again and again. his voice tremulous, shouting as if to fight off…
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When no one cared about Obamacare
Dr. Rosedale checked in at the front desk, where an attractive front office coordinator named Sandy, smiled warmly at him. Ever since his divorce, the ladies were treating him extra nice. Imagining that they felt sorry for him, he also dared to wonder if some wished to become the next Mrs. Rosedale. “You’re in room 3, doctor,” she said. “Let me get you set up.” She stood and waited for him to follow. Something on the television in the waiting room caught his ear in that moment, in September 2010. President Obama was announcing that he had just signed the Affordable Care Act into law, and now 50 million uninsured…
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Getting disability by threatening a bullet in the head
“Tell Dr. Rosedale next time I see him walkin’ cross the parkin’ lot, he’s gonna get a bullet in his damn head,” said a voice on the phone at the medical clinic in Oakland, California. The medical assistant taking the call panicked. ”Who is this? What are you saying?” she said. She spun around in her chair to look for a supervisor or anyone who could take over. “Never mind who it is! Shit, just tell ‘him he done somebody wrong.” The voiced hung up. His search for Enlightenment over, Brad believed his spiritual awakening made his life’s mission secure. All he had to do was go to work and…
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adverse childhood experience, business corruption, doctor work, human psychology, personal development
After healing the inner child, something is missing
Dr. Sherman peered across his big oak desk at Brad, and then at Hannah. A wizened old man in thick spectacles, he had seen every misfortune that could fall on a human life, and the consequences. After a thorough evaluation backed by 40 years of psychiatric practice, he had only three words. “Go to sleep,” said Dr. Sherman. His tone was gentle but firm. “Go to sleep? What the hell does that mean?” says Hannah. “I brought you this poor doctor who has been bamboozled and cheated by everybody and their damn mother, and all you can say is go to sleep?” Her sharp voice cracked like a whip, causing…
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Predators in private practice
Five years at Cook County Hospital transformed Dr. Brad Rosedale into an experienced trauma surgeon who wouldn’t flinch at the sight of the worst carnage. No matter how much blood, how many broken bones, or how bad was the mangled extremity, each body part was a challenge that he could fix and usually restore to proper function. The Uzi machine gun victims, suicide jumpers, and nerve and artery repairs from sword slashes, no longer made him anxious, wondering “how the hell are we going to fix this.” Now, it was just another day or night on the job. Chicago was a glittering city of polar opposites, an incongruous melting pot…