Greg,
Your lack of civility or respect for other professionals is astounding. I
believe your arguments are flawed.
How are they flawed?? Your “memory challenged” section about Endolite, Otto
Bock, Motion Control, OWW, and others are different. The published names of
people that attended their ‘education courses’ to become qualified. This is
vastly different than what we are having happen with Ossur. This is not a
‘pay for education’ issue. This is a company that is mailing all prior
patients with a list of who they should see. This is a change from past
policy and accepted standards of what the company will do with warrantee
information. It is not solicited by the patient and punishes any facility
that uses Ossur products without paying the fee because their patients will
be told to go elsewhere.
With Hanger/Novacare, I attended that course and do not work for Hanger.
There are a huge number of prosthetists that attended that course. Can
those people market the Sabolich socket, not unless your name is
Sabilich..but the socket principals are the same no matter the name and that
socket has been introduced at a couple of Academy/AOPA meetings by Kevin
Carol so it’s basic properties are out in the public domain.
Now, about your “common sense” argument. HMOs and other third party payors
are not the same as Ossur. They are NOT directing patient’s away from you
as a result of your participation with them. The patient chooses…directly
or through an employer a third party payor. The insurance company does not
choose patients at will and direct them away from their current care. If
someone changes insurance carriers, they may be told that facility A, where
they have been going and are happy with the service, is not a network
provider and facility B is. The patient can then choose who to go to
understanding that the insurance carrier may have a financial incentive for
the patient to try facility B. But that is a result of the patient’s choice
of insurance.
So,lets look at your Hanger vs. Ossur argument. From what I understand is
that Hanger wants to buy Ossur products at a price that is lower than Ossur
is willing to sell them for. Perhaps there is also an issue with how long
they have to pay or credit line…really it does not matter. Hanger wants
terms that are unacceptable to Ossur. Contract 101… If the contract is
not acceptable to both parties then don’t sign it! Have you never turned
down an insurance company contract because you felt the offered fee schedule
was too low. It is the same issue. Do I want to support Ossur because they
took a stand and refused deep discounts for Hanger?? I could not care less.
I want to know what discount I am going to get. As far as them being a
friend to the smaller O&P office. The small offices do not have the volume
of business to qualify for a discount from them. They are not a friend of
the small guy.
And again, this issue is simple. If you were in practice for 10 years and
fit a number of Flexfoot systems over that time, each of those patients are
now being told to go elsewhere. That is wrong!!! You are being punished
for using their product and supporting the company over the years allowing
it to grow to what it is today and for refusing to pay a fee to become one
of their Ossur approved facilities.
So Greg, if you would like to present a differing opinion, please do. I
welcome that, but there is no need for cheap shots.
Brett R. Saunders, CPO, FAAOP
