Make America Great again by learning how to navigate the collapsing United States HealthUncaring Money Making System.

1. Get your records and keep copies.

Get the disc of any radiology studies: MRI, xray, CT scan, echocardiogram. Keep them. Hand carry to your visit with the specialist. Yes, I know your doctor said they'd be sent and I know the specialist's office said they'd get them, but I have two friends so far this week in two days who traveled 2 hours or more to a specialist who DID NOT HAVE THE STUDIES. Do NOT give your only copy to the specialist. Demand two. Either get them on different days or just pay for the second disc.

A clinic closed in our area a year ago. It was in three counties, 3400+ patients. The physician owner was not paying the bills, including the electronic medical record. We couldn't get records, the emr company wouldn't release them. Gone. Thirteen people called to be new patients with me the day the clinic…

The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his heaven—
All's right with the world!

Robert Browning's 1841 poem achieved considerable fame in his own time. It has disappeared, largely, from the broader culture, save for students of historic English literature and collectors of vulgar trivia.

The…

Happy Birthday to me. I am 40 today.

I know 40 is a subjective number in a giant pile of subjective numbers, but this age is hitting me harder than I had expected. I thought I would sail right through. I was rather wrong.

Turning 30 felt easy. I just kept being whatever it was that I had been, and there was no skip in continuity. No greater philosophical evaluation of life or technique. Just the changing of a number. This is different somehow. I suppose it's part…