Internet as the "Wild West"

Today,  I heard the saying that the internet is like the wild west.
How true it is - The landscape vast with dangerous terrain, few rules and people hungry for gold.

I began this adventure to help those with a similar plight of my own, those who were unable to find the help they really needed that they couldn't get before - exactly what our forefathers were seeking. Along this long and winding trail, I've transitioned through many roles,  Doctor to patient, CEO to Web Developer, Marketing Director to Sales etc. I've crossed paths with gunslingers and cowboys and many fallen travelers on their way to Internet marketing gold.

As I prepare for a real life adventure on a medical mission to the Amazon, I  can't help but wonder why the allure for gold is so great? Why is it that we don't do things we believe in because we believe in them and because we think they will benefit humanity?

Bicycling in New York City

New York City has a higher rate of cycling for transportation than the rest of the US (11% vs. 3%) but is still has a bicycle death rate nearly equal to that of the rest of the country (2.8 per one million residents). If you've ever ridden a bike in New York City or thought about taking it for a whirl in Central Park or Prospect Park - Read these important safety stats and information! 


Bicycling in NYC

Protecting entrepreneurs or damning angels?

Interesting debate regarding the whether Sen. Dodd's bill is actually protection for entrepreneurs or really just a way to keep angel investors out of the game in order to make room for others. According to some reports this legislation could decrease the number of accredited Angels by up to 2/3 by increasing the red tape associated with seeking angel funding.


The Entrepreneurs Movement sent out an interesting opinion piece in the Huffington Post. Robert Litan, the VP of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation noted "This would require companies seeking angel investment to make a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which would have 120 days to review it. This would both raise the cost of seeking angles and delay the ability of companies to benefit from their funding...it is the very worst possible time to discourage angel investment." He questions why this is being added to a financial reform bill, in which, "there is no evidence that angel investment in startup companies played any role in the financial crisis." The opinion piece can be read at http://huff.to/bZzXVw. 


Read the "Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010" at at http://bit.ly/caY7bc - the most notable sections are on pages 380-81 (Section 412-413) and 816-819 (Section 926).  


I've heard some pretty interesting theories on why this will not be good and why it seems fishy to include it in such a bill at such a time.


What's your opinion?

Interesting words from Ron Paul on the health care bill

Interesting statements of Ron Paul on the passage of the Health Care Bill:

"Following months of heated public debate and aggressive closed-door negotiations, Congress finally cast a historic vote on healthcare late Sunday evening. It was truly a sad weekend on the House floor as we witnessed further dismantling of the Constitution, disregard of the will of the people, explosive expansion of the reach of government, unprecedented corporate favoritism, and the impending end of quality healthcare as we know it.Those in favor of this bill touted their good intentions of ensuring quality healthcare for all Americans, as if those of us against the bill are against good medical care. They cite fanciful statistics of deficit reduction, while simultaneously planning to expand the already struggling medical welfare programs we currently have. They somehow think that healthcare in this country will be improved by swelling our welfare rolls and cutting reimbursement payments to doctors who are already losing money. It is estimated that thousands of doctors will be economically forced out of the profession should this government fuzzy math actually try to become healthcare reality. No one has thought to ask what good mandatory health insurance will be if people can’t find a doctor. Legislative hopes and dreams don’t always stand up well against economic realities. Frustratingly, this legislation does not deal at all with the real reasons access to healthcare is a struggle for so many – the astronomical costs. If tort reform was seriously discussed, if the massive regulatory burden on healthcare was reduced and reformed, if the free market was allowed to function and apply downward pressure on healthcare costs as it does with everything else, perhaps people wouldn’t be so beholden to insurance companies in the first place. If costs were lowered, more people could simply pay for what they need out of pocket, as they were able to do before government got so involved. Instead, in the name of going after greedy insurance companies, the federal government is going to make people even more beholden to them by mandating that everyone buy their product! Hefty fines are due from anyone found to have committed the heinous crime of not being a customer of a health insurance company. We will need to hire some 16,500 new IRS agents to police compliance with all these new mandates and administer various fines. So in government terms, this is also a jobs bill. Never mind that this program is also likely to cost the private sector some 5 million jobs.Of course, the most troubling aspect of this bill is that it is so blatantly unconstitutional and contrary to the ideals of liberty. Nowhere in the constitution is there anything approaching authority for the Federal government to do any of this. The founders would have been horrified at the idea of government forcing citizens to become consumers of a particular product from certain government approved companies. 38 states are said to already be preparing legal and constitutional challenges to this legislation, and if the courts stand by their oaths, they will win. Protecting the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, should be the court’s responsibility. Citizens have a responsibility over their own life, but they also have the liberty to choose how they will live and protect their lives. Healthcare choices are a part of liberty, another part that is being stripped away. Government interference in healthcare has already infringed on choices available to people, but rather than getting out of the way, it is entrenching itself, and its corporatist cronies, even more deeply."

The only thing I hope is that we all pay better attention to what is going on around us. We are the only ones who will be affected by these decisions. We do have the power to decide.

ACEP Reacts to health care bill

ACEP president Angela Gardner released a statement to the press and a plea to ED doctors on March 22nd that I found interesting.

She warned that "emergency visits will increase, as we have seen in Massachusetts, which already has universal coverage...health insurance coverage does not equal access to medical care, and emergency visits are increasing in that state. This means critical problems facing emergency patients are not going away... America's medical liability system is broken and without true medical liability reform, patients' access to lifesaving care will continue to suffer.... ERs are a critical, life-or-death part of our health care system and ERs need help now. This crisis in emergency care is everyone's problem, because every person is only one step away from a medical emergency." They encourage ED docs to accept it and try to do the best we can to improve what has been handed to us...."

"...I am calling on emergency physicians to unify and find a common bond in the needs of our patients, and put the rancor and division of the path to health care reform behind us in the interest of better emergency care for everyone."

Personally, I've always been in favor of some sort of Universal Health Care, and I've made that clear over the past few years. However, I think we're all in for a rude awakening.

A DocMatcher grows in brooklyn.

We are happy to report that DocMatcher is showing great progress in recruiting excellent physicians to help treat the many people in need of good health care. We now have added neurologists in Brooklyn, who are also posting appointments on-line and have extended to include Chiropractors and Bariatric Medicine doctors. In total, we've another ten top doctors to our DocMatcher family! We welcome them and applaud their decision to take control of their practice and help us stay healthy. We also welcome another 1100 doctors from a Brooklyn hospital who will be added by months end. We hope they too utilize DocMatcher's features.

Patient and doctor cooperation in taking back control of the health care system is even more important after President Obama signed into law today, the controversial Health Care Reform Bill. To read the actual bill and see how the bill will affect us see my post.

The New Deal?

Patient and doctor cooperation in taking back control of the health care system is even more important after President Obama signed into law today, the controversial Health Care Reform Bill.

The bill been summarized to death, an interesting breakdown on how it will affect us is found here. Or, a better suggestion is to read for yourself the actual bill from the library of congress. Of course, it is still being reconciled but I think you'll be surprised at what it actually says and what that means for us individually, as a community and as country. Some questions to ask ourselves are: who actually wrote the bill and why? Why now? What does this mean on a personal level, community level, and globally? What will the health care system look like in ten years, or twenty? How will it affect our children's children?

Of interest, is that 7 minutes after the bill, 13 states sued the US government for their actions stating that the new bill violates the 10th Amendment of the Constitution that says "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" (read more). I'll say that it is difficult to enforce something that the country as a whole isn't fully behind.

No matter what you think, this will affect each and everyone of us and as Vice President Biden put it so eloquently "this is a f*%Cing big deal".

CEO of DocMatcher.com, Dr Tara Khan, to appear on Ask the Doctor on Net NY

Tara Khan, Founder and CEO of DocMatcher.com is scheduled to appear on Ask the Doctor on Tuesday, January 12th 2010. Net NY is on Channel 97 TimeWarner Cable Viewers and Channel 30 for CableVision Subscribers. If you miss it, you can always catch the podcast. Doctor Khan will be answering questions regarding Emergency Medicine topics and other common medical conditions. Find out how to find a doctor that is best for you, what type of doctor you need for a particular disorder, and learn more about diagnosis and treatment of your specific condition by calling in or asking a question on-line.