At the bottom of the transcript of this blog, you will see a link that shows the board of directors for the Center for Advancing Health and also to the article written for them by a journalist – Trudy Lieberman – about our facility, referring to us as a ‘cut-rate surgery center.’

This is an obvious hit piece as far as I’m concerned. To refer to us as a cut-rate surgery center is an indication that this writer believes we are cutting corners or that somehow, something that is a necessity is lacking at our facility.

Not only is Ms. Lieberman’s article horribly biased, it’s also inaccurate. So as a journalist, I believe I’ll refer to her as a third-rate journalist, as she’s violated two of the pillars of good journalism, having provided a biased article that’s also inaccurate.

I think Ms. Lieberman should make up her mind. Just like hospitals that claim that they’re bankrupted by low payments from Medicaid are simultaneously insisting that everyone expand Medicaid, I think Ms. Lieberman should make up her mind. In the title of her article, where she refers to us as ‘cut-rate’, not too far into the article she basically says ‘and who has that much money to pay for these wildly expensive procedures?’ She really should make up her mind.

This is a horrible article, the inaccuracies of which I don’t really have the time to go over. But let’s talk about a couple of them.

• She says that our implant pricing is not included. Our implant pricing is included in almost every procedure we do. There are some we don’t include it in because we don’t know what it is, but we do reveal that to patients before the surgery commences.
• She also says we don’t accept credit cards. I don’t know where she came up with that, but we do.
• The other problem she has is where she talks about trust and how the patient is eroding trust and their relationship with their physician if they walk out and say ‘no, I’m not going to go to that expensive not-for-profit hospital that’s going to bankrupt me and why would you send me there anyway? I’m going to go to another place that I know is fair and not price gouging.’ I would disagree with her in that this is a trust-eroding move by a patient who is acting like a true consumer in the marketplace.

The Center for Advancing Health, I believe, should consider a name change. How about ‘The Center for Advancing Healthcare Cronyism’? One look at their board on the link at the bottom of this page and you’ll see the usual suspects that I talk about on this blog.

This article is a hit piece. I think we’ll see more of this and we will continue to have fun with them as they write them. But I wanted to respond to Ms. Lieberman’s article – this third-rate journalist’s article.

Thank you for joining me. We will see you next time.

Center for Advancing Health board of directors

Trudy Lieberman’s article, ‘Getting Your Operation at a Cut-Rate Surgery Center’