Twila Brase, who leads Citizens Council for Health Freedom, says 70% of physicians are employed by a hospital or by a larger health care system. That number is even higher, she says, for doctors 40 and younger.
"There is a movement toward independent practice in a way unprecedented in the last few years,” she advises. “And this movement is happening with doctors who are not happy having their decisions suppressed.”
Beyond the patient waiting room, doctors routinely deal with profit-chasing health insurance companies and ever-changing payments and policies. Doctors also deal with the bureaucracy of the federal government when patients use government-paid benefits from Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare. Many doctors are no longer seeing new patients who use Medicare, for example, because of the onerous rules and low reimbursements.
To help private practices break free, Brase and Citizen’s Council have launched an initiative called “The Wedge” to help doctors and patients get back to an old-school doctor-patient relationship with cash payments and up-front costs, and a clinic that is free of health insurance rules and corporate scrutiny.
The website for “The Wedge” includes a U.S. map showing participating physicians that include family practices, mental health facilities, pediatricians, specialists, surgery centers, and urgent care clinics.
Citizens Council was started by Brase, a former RN, when Congress began debating the Affordable Care Act. Brase warned at the time that patient-centered medical care was being threatened by politicians promising better coverage and care.
On the Wedge website, Brase explains that doctors are bogged down with Medicare requirements, for example, that now cover 132,000 pages.
During the virus pandemic, many doctors are now facing a different kind of burden. They are watching their colleagues get punished for questioning the six-month vaccine and its unproven mRNA development. Many doctors and nurses are being tossed out for refusing The Jab after working during the worst of the pandemic.
Some physicians are dispensing Ivermectin to COVID patients, at great risk to their practice and medical license, despite reporting the anti-parasite medicine is helping people recover.
“Doctors are learning that there are really options to save people from COVID-19, and (they're) finding that the corporations are taking away those options,” Brase tells American Family News. “So doctors who are having their ethics challenged, and their medical practice restricted, are starting to move."
