This blog post is about colon screening, not colon testing. If you have an actual reason to need a colonoscopy other than you haven't had one for 10 years or just turned 45, far be it from us to stand in your way. Time to talk about the dreaded colonoscopy . The first good news is that, as you can tell from all the store window displays and promotions, March is colorectal cancer awareness month. The other good news is that the colonoscopy guideline-writers, whom I suspect ar

Your Consent in your “wallet” should pop up when you go to the ER.  It has brief instructions on it. This is the longer version of the instructions. Background Congress passed a law in 1986 called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act , or EMTALA as it is known.  It was a response to the common practice of ERs telling you to go elsewhere if they didn’t like your insurance or lack thereof. Many hospitals have used that law as an excuse to raise prices for emerge

A few of our many users of the Prevent Consent have forwarded them to us. Here is a little collection. Most recent is Sunrise Hospital, HCA's largest. A patient (who wants her name used) got a bill for $27,000 for dehydration in Las Vegas causing a fall: The amount owed was her deductible, $6,234.53 As Marshall Allen's book title says: "Never pay the first bill." Quizzify sent one letter and magically the second bill fell to an even $3000, not itemized: They are hoping we go

You’ve likely read all the hullabaloo about the dangers of any amount  of alcohol, like: No level of alcohol consumption is safe No level is safe – not even one glass of red wine/day Spread the word – no amount of alcohol is safe Here are five reasons why this conclusion is completely wrong and it is perfectly OK to enjoy seven ounces of alcohol a week. (Just not at the same time, please.) This blog post will show you why the Validation Institute is needed. While others dis

****You can download the app with these words right into your phone and have them pop up when you go to the ER. Chances are you reached this blog from your home page quiz. This app can be reached right from your home page**** "Superseding other consents, I consent to responsibility (including insurance) for up to 2 times Medicare if coded correctly." If you need care in an emergency room, do not sign the financial consent that the hospital or free-standing ER has put in front

Picking up from the one-page summary, this QR code links to a typical letter we place on file with the hospital. Emails for the ERs and admissions departments are never listed, so we send these to whoever we find in our database. It is then up to that person to forward the email. If they don't and the ER claims they never saw it, that's on them. You can't make yourself uncontactable and then complain because you weren't contacted. Or, as they say in law school, you can't murd