A suggestion… Fight fire with fire.
Start an “affiliation” program of your own under the auspices of a group
separate from AOPA and BOC. All it takes for membership is certification
(and a license, where required) to practice.
Just as some O and P facilities list their accreditation in their
ads in the yellow pages, start listing the web page that points to
this new group. Burry the hatchet with respect to the differences the
two groups have with respect to accreditation… if you meet the
requirements to practice in your state, you are in. List your
accreditation with your entry in the directory, along with contact
information and a pointer to your own web site, if you have one. (If you
don’t, a basic web page could be provided as part of your registration,
just as some domain registries on the internet provide an “under
construction” web page for free.)
Avoid affilitation with a specific component manufacturer to avoid the
“bought and paid for” impression of the Ossur equivalent.
Keep the costs and overhead low so that even small shops can find
room in their “advertising” budget for the small fee that it would
take to put this together and keep it running.
If this new group has facilities listed in a patient’s community.. and
Ossur doesn’t (because folks just didn’t pay their ransom), before long,
instead of being a “plus” for Ossur, it will be a negative, even if
there is a prosthetist who uses Ossur components in the area.. they
won’t be listed in Ossur’s directory.. so where does the patient go?
To the listing in the new directory, whether they use Ossur components
or not! And it looks, to the patient, like “there are only a limited number
of shops in the whole world who use Ossur’s components.. they must not
very good if so few people use them!”
Then stick to your guns about boycotting Ossur’s Affiliate program…even
if you continue to use their components…
Just a thought..
Steve
