I have a bad habit of writing my blogs late at night or early in the morning, which isn't always the smartest thing from both an articulation/clarity and family-relations perspective. This is a test to see if I can post something meaningful in 8 minutes or less. Let me know - the secret will be to post someone else's words.

A fundamental belief in my work with customers as they fight the insurance companies is that there is no more powerful force than a motived group of patients. One of my star pupils this year is in a medium-sized pediatric group on the east coast. Lately, he's gone...crazy. I don't think he'd disagree. I'll let him describe his effort to get any movement from a notorious MCO below. Emphasis mine.

We did send out some email notifications last night to a good couple hundred patients. We asked them to email the guys at [HMO] and phone them. I got about 10 1-2 page letters [overnight!], heart wrenching stories about how great we are. I did not even realize the impact we have on some people's lives. Some had called the rep - he was rude and said that he does not speak to patients only providers and said he will ignore the emails...[so] I went even one step further [and faxed the president, executive vice president, directors, and many more.] You have got to read some of this stuff. Every thing you say at your meetings came out in these letters - amazing. This is just a little blast...on Dec 1, 3500 letters go. Our phone has been ringing with questions, people are scared.

OK, I did it in 8 minutes, even if it's cheating. I wanted to post excerpts from some of the letters the patients sent to the doctor, but I felt it was breaking the confidence of the patients (even if they are written for public review) and I didn't need the insurance company tracking the doc down through a Google search.  I'll post the results of this on-going negotiation soon.