Under Suspicion for Quality Health Care

Albert Babel, DC, a Life graduate (1979), has been in practice in Rome, Georgia and active in the Georgia Chiropractic Association (GCA) for the past 17 years. He was president of the GCA from 1987-1989, and from 1993-1995, and represented the association for 14 years at the state legislature. In 1995 he was appointed to the Health Care Advisory Committee by Speaker of the Georgia House, Tom Murphy.

You have the right to continue to remain silent about how you are being treated by the health care industry. Everything you do to assist your patients' well-being will be held against you. Drop the adjustment and no one holding insurance company stock will get hurt.

The charges against you include: first degree attempting to get a patient well. This amounts to a frivolous use of insurance premium dollars which could be better spent developing a golf course and condominium complex: a much better use of resources.

There is a serious charge of allowing patients to loiter in your office beyond the approved three visits. This is a waste of our time. By now you should have gathered that we expect a fast acting adjustment to be developed, which works immediately and doesn't need to be repeated in any one calendar year. Simply having the patient come back time after time doesn't work for us. That is why we are calling your patients after their first visit to determine how effective your care is; if they feel "cured" or at least "better."

We take this opportunity to remind you that there are drugs on the market today which block pain instantly! This is a solution which is simple, fast, effective (if only temporary), and not repetitively labor intensive. Patients must only possess a minimal swallow reflex; brain density is not required. This is the time honored established standard in health care. No one is into gradual cumulative correction these days, not when we must produce a high rate of return to the people who matter most: our stockholders, CEOs, and middle managers. That one percent of the PPO health care market is one percent which could go into our pockets. We take that seriously.

The final charge against you is the one of not feeling our pain. We have a job to do and you are not helping. This constant begging and trying to convince us to allow patient treatment really depresses us. We don't care about treatment, we care about insurance dollars. If you are going to have the audacity to try to help these misguided people, you are going to have to do it on your own, because we are trying to steer them away from your silly care. This works effectively when we tell them we won't pay for chiropractic care. Some pesky folks however are slipping through the cracks. Frankly, we don't like it when they call us, yelling ugliness about restraint of trade and monopolies having nothing to do with the board game. They seem very angry and say mean things to us.

The sentence for your crime is to rehabilitate yourself by beginning a series of inoculations, starting with the Hepa-yourself vaccine we've just spend 12 billion dollars underwriting. Research shows that after just three injections and a booster in the buttocks every five years, the strange desire to assist people in their wellness will fade like a bad memory.

Part of your rehabilitation must include getting a real job like those well-paying positions we have open in our claim department for a lucky few who see things our way. You can have an exciting career as an independent consultant and help us eliminate massive abuse of chiropractic care. You will have your very own rubber stamp which will spell out: DIAGNOSIS DOES NOT SUPPORT THE NEED FOR CARE. We will train you to say: "I'm in charge here; claim benefits are denied.

As a plea bargain agreement, you must agree never to use the phrase "stabilization of a chronic condition." Your probation will be revoked if even during a coffee break you are heard to say, "slow but steady progress," unless you are talking about the stock market.

You were a chiropractor once, therefore, you are under suspicion at all times. We fell it is better for everyone if you do not attempt any contact with patients. No communication is good communication. That way you will not be tempted to "fix" things.

we like everything just the way it is. Your new motto is: "Don't palpate, just fixate on limiting claims." Get the vision we have always had from our lofty insurance towers. In the long run, it'll go easier on you, believe us. And by the way, do it without a follow-up visit. In the end you'll have to adjust to it anyway, if you pardon the pun.

Albert Babel, DC
Rome, Georgia