Physicians to Offer Real Life Solutions on Capitol Hill for Cutting Medical Costs, Increasing Quality

WASHINGTON, Oct. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The physician members of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (www.AAPSonline.org) are on the front lines of patient care and know what works (and what doesn't) for improving their patients' access to quality, affordable medical care.  On October 13, 2011, two AAPS physician members will join with Congressman Marsha Blackburn (TN-7) for a briefing on Capitol Hill to provide information on what is already happening outside the Beltway to restore the patient-physician relationship and lower costs.

TIME: Thursday, October 13, 2011 8 a.m. to 9 a.m.

LOCATION: 2456 Rayburn House Office Building, Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.

PARTICIPANTS: Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-7)
Jane M. Orient, M.D., Exec. Dir., Association of American Physicians & Surgeons
G. Keith Smith, M.D., Founder, Surgery Center of Oklahoma

BACKGROUND:  Congressman Blackburn will discuss the Health Care Choice Act, HR 371. The Health Care Choice Act empowers consumers by giving them the ability to purchase an affordable health insurance policy with a range of options.  It will replace Washington mandates with interstate competition so that consumers can have better options at lower prices.

G. Keith Smith, M.D. will discuss the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, a 32,535 square foot, state-of-the-art multispecialty facility in Oklahoma City, owned and operated by approximately 40 of the top surgeons and anesthesiologists in central Oklahoma.

In contrast to a vast majority of hospitals that obfuscate their prices, Dr. Smith's center offers patients (including the uninsured and under-insured) transparent, direct, packaged pricing on surgical procedures, thus the patient knows exactly what the cost of the service will be upfront.  It is no secret to anyone that the pricing of surgical services is at the top of the list of problems in our dysfunctional healthcare system. Bureaucracy at the insurance and hospital levels, cost shifting and the absence of free market principles are among the culprits for what has caused surgical care in the United States to be cost prohibitive. It is clear that something must change.  Dr. Smith believes that a very different approach is necessary, one involving transparent and direct pricing, and his surgery center is proving that market-based solutions provide quality and pricing that are unmatched.

Also presenting will be Jane Orient, M.D.  Doctor Orient is the Executive Director of Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a voice for patients and physicians independence since 1943, and has been in solo practice of general internal medicine since 1981. "Many physician members of AAPS are finding innovative, market-based practice models that allow them to work directly for their patients and break away from the bureaucratic quagmire of big-insurance and government payment," explains Dr. Orient.  She is a clinical lecturer in medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and the author of Sapira's Art and Science of Bedside Diagnosis.  Dr. Orient also authored YOUR Doctor Is Not In: Healthy Skepticism about National Health Care, published by Crown.

SOURCE Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)