It seems like people in this country are more fixated on what Tiger Wood's apology speech means instead of their medical coverage, the availability of direct access, and their overall health. I did a little research on this. In my clinic, I asked if anyone knew about the Medicare cap and what the current trends are in healthcare coverage. No one knew about any caps to Medicare or the details about our healthcare crisis. They just knew about the attempts to pass the reform. However, almost everyone talked about and had multiple opinions about Tiger's speech, what he should have said, and what sponsors should do. What the hell is going on??? To confirm this phenomenon, I did some searches on twitter. Using Twitter you can see how many people are talking about a specific topic and what they are saying. The number of discussions on Tiger was about 1200 x more popular.

It seems like the media has slowly melted the public%u219s brain into a gossip filled goo. As a physical therapist, what can you and I do? Well first we can provide our patients with information about their healthcare rights and concerns. I think physical therapists as a profession have done a poor job of PR. Only in the past few years as the APTA started the PR campaign of Try PT First. Where was this in the past 20 years? We need to do our part to inform the patients! I think as a profession, we should join forces with other professional in our area to promote our services, educated people about their coverage, spread the word about direct access, and collaborate on building the profession.

How can you start? Here are some simple ideas: post information in your clinic about any of the above issues, go on your social media outlet (facebook, twitter, MySpace, etc.) and spread the word, hold seminars on the topics. We can and need to put out information that will help our patients become more educated about these issues. Only informed patients and people in general can make a difference. So get out there and tell people about the horrible Medicare cap, the details of direct access, and the crisis on healthcare (in case you didn't know, the trend on healthcare costs, unless changed, will bankrupt America!!!). So please be informed and inform others.

On a daily basis, I discuss the health care reform details with my patients. My overall consensus is that most people have no clear understanding of what the reform really is. Most people equate it as "socialized medicine" and are not in favor of it. It's just a plain and clear example of how little most people know about the reform. They seem to forget about the people who currently DO NOT have insurance. Have we become a society of "what's in it for me" only mentality? Does the person captured in video at a townhall meeting saying, "keep you government hand off my medicare" represent the level of ignorance of the American people?

First, there is NO WAY the reform will be socialized medicine. Lets think about it. The hundreds of millions of dollars the insurance industry has spend in the past decade lobbying for their benefit would never "allow" such a bill to pass. It would shut down all of their businesses. Like most bills that pass, some of it will be good for the people and some of it will be good for corporations. We really won't know what exactly will be passed until it does. However, there are some good things currently in the bill regarding physical therapy. Just go to the APTA site for information. (i.e. 2 year extension on the medicare cap expemptions).

For now I think now is the time for every physical therapist, PT assistant, friends and family of PTs, and students to attend the townhall meetings. Ask your reps to support Medicare direct access, to repeal the Medicare physical therapy cap. for details about the meeting schedule in your state and what to say, click on http://vocusgr.vocus.com/grspace2/Newsroom/ViewAttachment.aspx?SiteName=APTA&Entity=PRAsset&AttachmentType=F&EntityID=6154&AttachmentID=3494c0dc-8c17-48bf-a50c-2bffab035769

http://vocusgr.vocus.com/grspace2/WebPublish/controller.aspx?SiteName=APTA&Definition=Resources&SV_Section=Resources

I encourage everyone to take action now because the oppotunity to make a large difference may not come again.

"Lets Do It!" Steve Young, DPT Body Solutions Voorhees NJ 08043