April 04, 2004

AP story on SimpleCare

During my trolling of Google News, I ran across this AP story about SimpleCare, an organization for physicians designed to support cash only medical treatment. Notice that in the AP article, the first patient interviewed is a guy named Chuck O'Brien.

Now, if one loads the SimpleCare homepage, the main contact is a guy named, you guessed it, Chuck O'Brien.

It appears that the two Chuck O'Briens are probably the same guy. While I don't think this really impungs the reputation of SimpleCare per se, I am a bit bothered by the fact that the AP story led me to believe that Mr. O'Brien was merely a patient, NOT the group's contact person.

UPDATE 4/4/04: Bryan at Arguing with Signposts followed my link to the SimpleCare page which had been edited. The new version of the page has edited the mailto link from the obvious chuck.obrien@simplecare.com to seminars@simplecare.com (put your mouse cursor over the email address) after the AP story was published today. Here's the Google Cache of the SimpleCare page, complete with the original chuck.obrien@simplecare.com mailto. I've also grabbed a huge screenshot of the Google cache.

UPDATE2 4/4/04 with disclaimer: The reason why I am blogging this is because I'm peeved that the AP published the story without telling readers who this Chuck O'Brien guy is. Then, after the story was published, someone edited the Web page to make the Chuck O'Brien email address a bit less obvious. One would hope that perhaps the folks behind SimpleCare would at least take a second and put up a disclaimer concerning the AP story, if the AP fails to correct it. Anyway, I actually think the concept behind cash only physician services is a good idea and that's the reason why I clicked on the AP story in the first place.

UPDATE3 4/6/04: The AP story was carried by numerous news outlets and CNN. (The cash only story even hit Jay Leno, in the form of a joke on Monday night.) Dr. Cherewatenko responds in a comment, and Bryan at Arguing with Signposts cross posts here and here about it.

Posted by joy at April 4, 2004 05:50 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Yes, typical media incompetence. They've become lazy. Worse, they're more interested in telling entertaining stories than they are in spreading the truth.


The other day, I was listening to NPR and they had a long interview with the owner of a site called carpoolcheats.org. The interview made it sound like this large entertaining site. Go there, and you discover that there's barely anything there. While the idea was interesting, it hardly merits a news report.


Though I'd had a feeling as the interviewer commented that it was getting "almost 500 hits a day!". Truly the next google...

Posted by: ucblockhead at April 4, 2004 08:36 PM

Maybe they changed the homepage, but I couldn't find the contact guy you mentioned. If this were true, the AP was getting jobbed, most likely. Of course, AP could also be taking the story from a local paper (known to happen) and the local paper blew the story.

So, what's up with the O'Brien guy?

Posted by: bryan at April 4, 2004 10:44 PM

GG, did you try to contact the AP? It would be interesting to see what they had to say on the subject.

Posted by: person of choler at April 5, 2004 08:58 AM

Thank you for your comments re: Chuck O'Brien. Chuck is a personal patient of mine and a SimpleCare member. He found out about us about 6 months ago and has volunteered his time ever since to help spread the word about AAPP and SimpleCare.

We have given over 30 presentations to community organizations over the past three months as a direct result of Chuck's passion to free patients of the incredible burdon of excessive health care expense. So before you decide to bash a non-profit association, a man who IS a SimpleCare patient, the AP Press and a guy who is truly helping spread the good word of SimpleCare - I suggest you do YOUR homework to appear more credible than you have at this point.

I would have gladly answered an e-mail if you would have taken the time to write. SimpleCare is a great concept - I am all ears if you have a better solution!

And for your information, I personally changed the link from chuck.obrien@simplecare.com to seminars@simplecare.com but neglected to direct them to my personal e-mail. This has now been corrected. Due to the increased number of requests it is more efficient for me to get them directly so I can check my schedule rather than go through Chuck at this point. He will however, continue to coordinate the times, places and contacts should you desire to learn more about SimpleCare.

In addition, he will remain a SimpleCare patient who has a humble and accurate perspective as a SimpleCare patient - to which he honestly communicated.

I trust this clears up any conspiracy theory you were trying to create. Please do not hesitate to call our office at 425-255-4166 if you have any other misunderstandings that you would like me to clear up for you.


Vern S. Cherewatenko, MD, MEd
Chairman and CEO - AAPP/SimpleCare

Posted by: Vern Cherewatenko at April 6, 2004 04:12 AM

So Dr. Cherewatenko, can you state for the record that Mr. O'Brien is not employed by you in any monetary capacity?

Posted by: ucblockhead at April 6, 2004 11:50 AM

Yes, under penalty of purgery - Chuck has received zero dollars for his efforts. He is not employed in any monetary capacity whatsoever.

The AAPP - a non-profit association that has created SimpleCare also has developed a program called 'Cares for America. You can read more about it at www.aapp.net. It is actually a pretty neat way for some of our patients to get care and volunteer time in the community to pay off their bill. (we do not expect them to volunteer time for us either - any where will do)

Chuck, and many others are volunteering their time to help us get this important message out to the nation. I would like to hear more about the Jay Leno joke - WOW!

I do appreciate your positive comments about this free-market, consumer driven solution to the health care crisis in our country. I apologize for any perception of non-disclosure that this article has created.

Vern

Posted by: Vern Cherewatenko at April 6, 2004 02:55 PM

I took a look around the simplecare site (before coming to this board and noticing the derogatory comments). The organization does ask its patients to become sponsors and spread the word. Talk about investigative misreporting...how about examining a site thoroughly before jumping to strange conclusions?

Posted by: Suzanne at May 22, 2004 11:36 AM