Are you Receiving GoFundMe care or Patreon Care and why it matters

(0:00) Hi, this is Dr. Daniels and welcome to Healing with Dr. Daniels. This is the May 24, 2020 edition, and today's topic is, "Are You Receiving GoFundMe or Patreon Healthcare and Why It Matters?" So today, I'm going to examine the strategies doctors employ in difficult economic times and what it reveals about how they perceive their services and, of course, why it matters to you.

(0:38) But first, we have to take our turpentine. Now, I have to tell you honestly, I discovered the healing powers of turpentine decades ago, and I had stopped taking turpentine except during the shows for a few months, and I noticed I was getting a little achy, cataracts were forming. I mean, I am 63, right, so what do you expect? I just wasn't really feeling up to stuff. So then I decided, well, you know what, let me just take this every day. Oh my god, aches and pains are better, almost gone, cataracts are clearing up, and I feel awesome. So we've got our white sugar, yes, white sugar, and what happened? Ah, turpentine's over here. This is the one-handed bottle open.

(1:51) Now I just happen to put this in a dark bottle because that's what I have, and of course, it's labeled, yay turpentine, but a clear bottle is fine, and I just put it in a small bottle so I can handle it. As many of you know, I do not live in the United States, it wasn't me, that means I go to a hardware store and they pump the stuff out from a vat in the back and put it in a suspicious-looking yellow jug previously used for something else. Yeah, it's pretty spooky, but it still works. So this is the dropper I use. I pull it right up the neck and I'm gonna squirt that right here. So you're probably wondering, like, how do you use this stuff, right? What's this turpentine thing? People ask. So just go to vitalitycapsules.com, my website, and enter your email address, and you will receive for free the report on how to use turpentine adjusted and make your own dose.

(2:56) All right, we need some water, yay water. Now I put a little bit in my mouth first, that way I use that water to make this come easily off the spoon and go quickly down my throat. Yeah, that went down smooth.

(3:21) And because the food supply on this planet is deficient in trace minerals for many reasons, I take Shilajit. This also offsets the effect of distilled water as well, which I drink. Doctor, why do you drink distilled water? So I can have clear skin. You see that clear skin? Clear skin at 63. Yeah, I take my skin seriously. All right, so I have this little scientific spatula. It's really overkill. I mean, you could do without it. You could use the tines of a fork or you could use the back end of a spoon, but I just use this because it gets out the amount that I need.

(4:10) I'll just turn it to the side here and you can see, yeah, that's a bit much. We're gonna scoop a little bit off that spatula. Yeah, you only need 200 milligrams. That's about 200 milligrams. And we're gonna take this, put it in the water. As you see, it does not readily dissolve, so we have to let that set and I will drink that later, either during the show or maybe not.

(4:56) Oh, we have to get these questions. All right, so today's topic. So wait, we got took our turpentine, got our Shilajit perk in here. We have to do a Vitality Capsules update. Vitality Capsules update. Vitality Capsules are back! They are in stock! Yay! I'm so happy. Oh my god.

(5:20) Many people are asking, what about a sale? When are we gonna have a sale? Right now, we're not able to have a sale. Although they are back in stock, we don't have enough stock to have a sale and we have to start the process all over again of, again, sourcing materials because they have to be fresh. They have to be tested and often the same source that had the optimal ingredients before is not the optimal source the next round. And so, unfortunately, because the different patterns of distributorship in the United States change apparently frequently, there's this very long lead time in terms of the supply chain and also with the present situation in the United States in terms of businesses being open or closed or functional or not. It's very difficult.

(6:28) So, we are just honestly thrilled to even be able to bring you Vitality Capsules and maintain the quality at all because of the difficult logistics. So, definitely go to vitalitycapsules.com. You can get regular which has turmeric and clove or extra strength which has cayenne pepper. The other ingredients which are garlic, ginger, cape aloe, senna, barberry, and cascara sagrada are the same in both capsules. But the difference between them is clove and turmeric in the green bottle which is regular and cayenne pepper in the extra strength.

(6:58) So, people who have heart issues, arthritis issues, asthmatic issues, they would do much better with the extra strength and pretty much the other issues do really well with regular. I'm pretty healthy so I prefer personally to take the regular because I don't like the cayenne in the extra strength. But if you're okay with cayenne, extra strength is good. The two, either one will give you your three bowel movements a day. The extra strength is more robust. You definitely need a lower dose to get the three bowel movements. But it's my opinion that the regular is more comfortable. So, yeah, you have to take one or two extra capsules a day. But it's a very nice, smooth experience.

(7:58) All right, that's the Vitality Capsules update. Oh, we're not able to have a sale. But those of you who order before the 25th, on or before the 25th of May 2020, will be able to attend, yay, our special customer appreciation webinar. And at that webinar, I will be going over advanced uses for Vitality Capsules as well as an update on the situation with things I cannot say in an unpaid situation or not, or can I say public forum. Yeah, so you'll have a private invitation to this special webinar. And if you aren't able to make it, there will be a replay. Also, you can send in Vitality Capsule or Turpentine-related questions. And if you're not able to make it, I will answer those as well.

(9:00) Okay, that brings us to today's topic, which is, "Are You Receiving GoFundMe or Patreon Care?" As always, I won't say always, but often, today's topic is prompted by an article in Medscape. This is the information source, totally reliable, totally standard for standard medical industrial complex allopathic doctors. It tells them what's what, what's happening, and occasionally even gives doctors directions, like what should they do?

(9:47) Okay, so this is Medscape. I have no idea what these codes mean. The URL is so friggin' long. It's got over a hundred gibberish characters, so I can't, I'm sorry, give you the URL, but I'll leave you the title: "To Stay Afloat in the Pandemic, Doctors Offices Turn to GoFundMe." Okay, so that's the title. Actually, if you put that in your browser bar, just the title, it will bring this up. Now, Medscape is a subscription service, but it's free, and I believe private citizens can sign up. So what I'm really giving you today is the interpretation, the backstory, and insights and understanding.

(10:17) In order to stay afloat in the pandemic, doctors’ offices turn to GoFundMe. And when I saw this, my jaw dropped open like... So let's see if we can sort this out. So they're going to tell you something, and then I'm going to put a little more information with it—information that probably all of you out there really know, but when you put the two things together, it's a powerful picture. Okay, so let's see what we got.

(10:59) It says, "In order to stay afloat in the pandemic, doctors’ offices turn to GoFundMe." A few weeks ago, I received an unsettling email. Yes, so this person was appropriately disturbed by this. Now, not for the reason I was disturbed by it, but at least they found it disturbing. The staff at my daughter's pediatrician's office—a family-run private practice in Brooklyn that serves more than 3,800 patients—was shifting to part-time.

(11:39) Now, they serve more than 3,800 patients. Just to give you an idea of practice size, my practice was 5,000 patients, and I was a solo practice doctor. So just an idea. We're shifting to part-time. The practice had applied for the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program. Okay, so Small Business Administration, anything, if you are a small business person who has had dealings with the Small Business Administration, you know that if you apply for their programs, it's pretty much, I don't want to say the kiss of death for your business, but a definite drag on profits.

(12:07) Parenthesis, my experience. I did not realize this. I was so naive. So I received an $80,000 Small Business Administration loan when I opened my medical practice. And so I thought, oh my God, this is great. You know, the interest rate is reasonable, and I'm just going to take out the loan and make my payments. That's a reasonable thing. And then about a year into it, I said, you know, my practice is doing so well. I'm just going to pay the loan off, you know, and the government can just have the money and lend it out to another small business. Was I dumb?

(12:49) So the small business loan had a serious prepayment penalty. The prepayment penalty was so stiff that literally I had to pay the government the full 10-year payments of the loan right there, bam, all at once in order to pay off the loan. And when I saw that, I realized that a lot of people say, well, we just dragged the loan out. I took a look at that and said, you guys need to get out of my life. I'm paying you off. So as a business person who's a bit sophisticated and has had dealings with small business administration, I know that getting involved with them is not the way to go.

(13:32) Okay. So the Paycheck Protection Program meant to help small businesses weather the economic turmoil brought on by the pandemic, but the money wasn't coming, at least in the initial round of funding. Exactly. And that's where the SBA is. They seduce you into depending on them and then sabotage your success. But I digress.

(14:04) "To be honest and frank, we are exhausted," wrote the operations director at South Slope Practice Pediatrics. Now here's a red flag already, red flag. They have an operations director. So this practice has a lot of fat and a lot of administrative overhead. The pandemic has taken its toll in office morale. We have seen a loss of revenue that came with fewer visits and still high bills to pay.

(14:46) Now a responsible business person would take serious decisive action, like slash the overhead, develop the revenue sources. I mean, just saying. At the urging of some of the other parents whose children are with the practice, he had set up two GoFundMe campaigns. One to help support the staff and another to cover appointments and bills for families who had lost their jobs and their health insurance, thanks to the pandemic. I donated. It felt dystopian to say the least. How has this happened?

(15:29) So this person who's writing is not a doctor, but is a patient of a doctor's office, and is wondering how a doctor needs to turn to GoFundMe. I never thought I'd have to do that as a medical office. Never, says the owner and founder of South Slope Pediatrics. My daughter's pediatrician told me later in an interview over Zoom. It is not news that New York City has been hard hit with the pandemic. Some of the diseases affecting the city's healthcare system had been immediate and obvious: overflowing emergency rooms, shortages of protective gear, makeshift morgues, and confusing and changing rules over childbirth and other necessary non-pandemic hospital visits. Across the world, similar patterns have unfolded as the situation has established and spread.

(16:26) Now you have to understand the person is shocked, and we have to kind of try to understand what it is that's disturbing this writer. But what's happening at this pediatric office felt different—a signal of another healthcare crisis waiting for us somewhere in the murky post-pandemic future. What did it mean for all the other small practices, not just in Brooklyn, but everywhere? Medical crowdfunding isn't new. Of course, GoFundMe, the most popular platform for raising money for healthcare, says it hosts more than a quarter of a million medical campaigns every year, mostly for people who need help paying astronomical medical bills. So the GoFundMe has been raising money to pay the doctors.

(17:25) Now here's the kernel of what is troubling. So with GoFundMe, you're raising money from people who are giving you money who have not benefited from and will not benefit from your services. It's important to understand. So you are not doing anything of benefit for those who give you money via GoFundMe, just saying. They are happening across the country, from primary care physicians in New York to pediatricians in California, to family doctors in Texas, to optometrists in Maine, to dentists in Colorado. When I asked the professor of management at New York University's Wagner Graduate School of Public Health about medical offices turning to crowdfunding, he says, in my 40-year career in this field, this is a first without a doubt. Now that the pandemic is putting small medical practices, which are more financially vulnerable than consolidated practices and those at big hospitals, in such a precarious position, it doesn't bode well for the future of healthcare in the United States.

(18:55) Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop, stop, stop. The pandemic did not put small medical practices in this position. They were financially vulnerable before the pandemic showed up, and the seeking of GoFundMe funding reveals this vulnerability and why the vulnerability is there. I think the use of GoFundMe to pay for medical care is obscene and signifies how deeply broken our medical system is, said a distinguished professor in public health. It's broken if patients have to use it, and it's broken if doctors have to use it. You have to ask, what is broken about it? That's an important thing to grasp—what is broken? There's something broken. Something doesn't feel right. Let's see what is broken.

(19:59) Many more small practices are struggling behind the scenes, and these small practices are already on the ropes thanks to economic pressure that predates the pandemic. Aha, pressures that predate the pandemic. So the pandemic is not actually the problem. They are often in the neighborhoods they serve, which means they are easier to access on a day-to-day basis. They typically provide primary care and are the first doctors to see when we are sick, and the doctors who monitor us on a regular basis to make sure we stay healthy. Small practices also provide a level of personal interaction that so often feels missing in modern medicine and in modern life in general. Before the pandemic, I would walk by the pediatric office on my way to the gym. I'd sometimes see the staff in the neighborhood and their lunch breaks, and the doctors—the two doctors who are married—are parents like me, and during office visits, they would talk about their own parenting experience and answer my endless questions. Losing that would not be just a problem for my family itself. It would give me the same sensation as when I see a favorite local restaurant shuttered or a quirky shop replaced with a bank. A piece of a community gone forever.

(21:18) In a recent article, the Atlantic described a David versus Goliath battle between big and small businesses in America. This is a David versus Goliath battle, and they've taken David's arms and strapped them behind his back with a zip tie. That's the battle that's going on now. You could call it David and Goliath if David could at least reach for his slingshot, but I don't think so. The pandemic has not been an equalizing force. It is a toxin for underdogs and a steroid for many giants. Who will emerge intact from the pandemic purgatory and who will not? He was squinting at our future commercial landscape. It's too great for cities. The outlook is not great. Leaving aside grocery stores, only a third of small businesses expect they will still exist if the pandemic lasts six months. According to a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in April, we have March, April, May—three months of the six months down and counting. It's like a big boxing match, and the referee is counting one, two, three, four, and counting up to that six-month mark.

(22:45) Cities will get more boring and homogenous as mom-and-pop shops and small restaurants are replaced by big companies and chains. He doesn't address healthcare, but his point applies there too. The data from the report aren't so granular that they cover small pediatrician offices or family practices. So it does cover data from 449 small businesses that relate to healthcare, less than half of whom said they'll be in business if the COVID-19 crisis lasts for six months.

(23:21) Eleven percent of primary care offices will close in the next few weeks without financial assistance. Financial assistance from where? From where? The situation in South Slope Pediatrics illustrates why small practices are at risk. They opened the office in 2012 with 275 patients. The goal was never to create a big business or even a chain of pediatric offices, they said, but to run a small community-based practice. Today the practice has 3,843 patients and 13 employees on payroll. I had 5,000 patients and one employee on payroll. Are you seeing an issue here? This practice was going to go under pandemic or no. When you have only 3,843 patients, you have 13 employees. Very different from having 5,000 patients, which my practice did, and one employee on payroll, including four doctors, three nurses, and administrative staff.

(24:22) So I don't know what "including" means. Are the 13 included in these, or are there four doctors, three nurses, and administrative staff? I think the 13 includes all the others. Okay. The monthly overhead is between $200,000 and $300,000 for key expenses. Okay, so their overhead monthly was $300,000. My overhead in the good old days was $5,000. Okay, so we have 3,800 patients, 13 employees, and an overhead of $300,000. Compare that with 5,000 patients, one employee. So I didn't count the doctor—that would be me as the employee. We had one employee and $5,000 a month in overhead.

(25:32) Key expenses like payroll, rent, and a supply of vaccines. Living in New York is not easy. It's not cheap. We pay higher rent, and we have to pay our employees more because they pay higher rent. Okay, so we can see here there is a serious management deficit. The economics of this medical practice, the management decisions, are devastating. Devastating. Just this situation—what they've already said—is totally unsustainable. I personally would not even open the practice. Like, even my itty-bitty practice, I thought 5,000 patients was small. If I had had four employees with my 5,000 patients, it would have wiped out the practice. It would absolutely wipe out the practice. And so here they have about four employees per 1,000 patients. And so for my 5,000 patients, I would have had 17 employees, and it would have been totally unsustainable. So this practice should have gone out of business a long time ago just on management principles.

(26:55) High rent in their geographic area? Irrelevant. This bulging salary profile? Crazy. In order to pay the rent, South Slope Pediatrics relies on patient visits. When it comes to insurance companies, there is the problem right there. And co-pays. And it depends on those in-person encounters. So here's the problem. Their bloated administrative staff—the practice manager—is only necessary because they accept insurance. So literally, you can lay at least $100,000, maybe even $200,000 a year of their expenses—I mean a month rather—of their expenses to their decision to accept insurance. Their office typically saw about 80 patients a day, a mix of well visits and vaccinations and sick visits. So let's be clear. A well visit is of zero benefit to the child because he's well. There's nothing that they're doing to make him better. And vaccinations? Yes, it's a service. Some people may choose to pay for it. That's nice. But there's no long-term benefit to them, let's say. And the short-term benefit is what? The kid is tortured. He's screaming. He's hysterical. And they aim to keep patients no more than five minutes in the waiting room.

(28:03) In my practice of 5,000 people, not only did we keep their wait to five minutes or less, but if you came early, it was entirely possible you would be seen early. At the end of a typical year, the practice is able to put aside about two weeks of total operating expenses as a cushion. So in my practice, at the end of the year, I was able to put aside 10 months of operating expenses as a cushion. So at the end of every year, I was able to put aside 10 months of operating expenses as a cushion, okay? Sometimes more than that. So you can see that their economic structure here is very fragile, very, very fragile. In March, the office had to rethink day-to-day operations. They shifted all well visits that didn't involve vaccinations to telemedicine. They cleared toys and books from the waiting room. They scheduled necessary appointments so no one was waiting for even a minute, allowing just one family to check in at a time. And so they did this to make the office safer for newborns and infants who must come in person for vaccinations, which are not safe, and checkups. For newborns, this has been especially important because of COVID-19. Newborns are often discharged after only 24 hours in the hospital.

(30:07) In order to catch illnesses and other problems, the American Academy of Pediatrics normally recommends a hospital stay of 48 hours for vaginal births and 96 hours for cesarean sections. Now again, in my modest medical experience of 10, 14, 18 years, not once was there an infant problem that took 24 hours to show up. Despite these safety measures, after COVID-19, excuse me, after the pandemic struck, we saw a storm of cancellations and a storm of no-shows. Appointments dropped to between 15 and 20 per day. Some newborns and infants did arrive for vaccines, but those don't bring in much money because the office doesn't make up the shots, doesn't mark up the shots. Exactly. So there's another problem. So in my practice, I cut vaccines. I refused to give them. Whether I believe in them or not medically, that wasn't even an issue because there was no markup, and the price was so high, and you could only lose money on them. It is financially devastating for a medical practice, pediatric or otherwise, to give vaccines.

(31:17) So in my case, vaccines were very cheap back then compared to today. Back then, a vaccine was like $25 to $35 a dose. You know, three vials sitting in the refrigerator, $3,000 worth of material. So I took a look at that, and I just said no. I could not tie up that kind of inventory and administer the vaccines at zero markup when not only was there labor involved—I gave the shots myself—but administratively, you have to keep those records available for at least 20 years, and that's a huge, huge cost. And during a 20-year period, you have to copy and reproduce and send out those records whenever anybody wants them. So it's an incredible economic burden to administer vaccines. And so again, a poorly run practice. Now what happens if the doctors refuse to give vaccines? The government has tons of clinics everywhere that give them out for free. And so most offices don't mark up shots, they can't mark them up because they're so expensive. And so you always lose money long-term on shots. And the other devastating reality to vaccinations economically is that because doctors don't mark them up threefold, which is really the cost of maintaining the records and that integrity and the ability to send out, send out, send out, and the retrieval and the frequent request for these records, then future patients have to pay exorbitantly higher prices to pay for that overhead of maintaining, reproducing, and sending out those records.

(33:01) Now a lot of people say, "Well, Dr. Daniels, you know, we're allowed to charge a dollar per page copying fee." Right. But you have this employee actually going and retrieving the records—that's 15 bucks right there off the bat. The actual one-page you Xerox, it's only—you get a dollar for that, but it's a $15 cost of the employee who goes and retrieves the records. You get the one-dollar fee for copying the one page. And then you add the old-age snail mail postage. So you really have a $30 cost for producing the vaccine record and sending it wherever. And I've had vaccine records literally requested about six or seven times before the kid's even five years old. So they have this money-losing situation here. So we have here profoundly poor management. Delivery of services of questionable value. Okay. And also, many families temporarily left the city, which means they won't be in even for necessary well visits. It's an oxymoron. I went to medical school. I know what a well visit entails. There's no such thing as a necessary well visit. The kid's well. I mean, here I'm sitting in this chair at medical school, and we're talking about well-child visits. Like, huh? I came from a family of six. You hear me? A family of six. We never went to the doctor to find out we were well. My parents put out the food. It was gone. Everybody ate. Everyone's growing, running around. They're healthy. That's it.

(35:02) So, yeah. So the writer confesses, "I'm one of those people who goes for necessary well visits, and I moved out of town in order to get help for my family with child care while my spouse and I work from home." So we left Brooklyn on March 12th before travel restrictions for upstate New York. Yes. The practice applied for the Paycheck Protection Program as soon as possible, but on April 17th, Chow received an email from his bank explaining that the initial round of funding had already been exhausted, and they told me they later learned the bank hadn't had time to even send their application. That is when I thought, "This is how it ends." That led to this email about the practice cutting hours as well as the patient-led push for the GoFundMe campaigns. The story is the same even for practices that have been around much longer. Bent Tree Family Physicians, which has a GoFundMe campaign that a patient launched when the office's initial Paycheck Protection Program application was declined. The practice opened in Texas in 1987. Today the practice has 85 employees and serves 30,000 people across North Texas. So again, take the 30,000 divided by six, and that's the employees per patient served. So, I mean, that's the number of—if you want to compare it to my medical practice. Okay, so my medical practice was 5,000. Divide 30,000 by 5,000, that's six. And divide the practice employees 85 by six, and so you can see that they have, you know, 14 employees per 5,000 patients. Again, in my medical practice, if I had 14 employees per 5,000 patients, my practice would have closed. And so this is actually what their problem is. Their problem is a business structure that is financially unsound, and their overhead is between $400,000 and $500,000 a month. Again, their practice is six times the size mine was, and so let's just divide that 50,000 by six, and that's $80,000 a month overhead. I can tell you my practice did not even bring in $80,000 a month in the old days, but by the end of the year, I had enough money to cover 10 months of expenses.

(38:19) These guys with all their employees haven't figured out, but by the end of the year, they only have enough to cover one month of operation for the following year, and we always need a line of credit. So, if you're running a business and you always need a line of credit, you're already in trouble. You're already in trouble. So, they're saying it's not different from a person running a mom-and-pop restaurant or busting their ass as an electrician or plumber. That is way different. I know plumbers, and their cost structure is much different from this cost structure. Your average plumber, if he's been in business since 1987, let me tell you, he can sit tight for a few years and wait this out. So, this is not even being run as responsibly as a plumber or electrician would be handling their affairs. It's not that different, and it's actually way different. The only difference is the younger doctors are still paying off $500,000 in debt. Another bad business decision. We need to change the model at a national level, he added. Huh? Why don't you change the model yourself at an individual level? So, these doctors have made serious cumulative bad business decisions. I mean like really bad business decisions.

(39:53) Small private practices have been disappearing from the medical landscape for decades. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons for that, and chief of which is what I just outlined, that they have adopted economically unsound practices. During that time, they have sold to larger hospital systems or private equity groups or have joined together to form consolidated practices. Now, private equity groups? Really? Those of you equity guys out there, you know, I went to business school. I can tell you, and you know. We'll just tell everyone else so they know. When the equity fund owns you, your expenses go up, your prices have to go up, your overhead goes up because they got to get paid. They also have access to other resources and infrastructure, including social workers and support from big information technology and billing departments. There we go, billing departments. So, what these people don't realize is a dollar today is literally worth $10 in the future. What's that mean? It means that they killed their billing department and only accepted cash. Their expenses would go down by 90%. While larger groups are also under financial strain right now, there are even GoFundMe campaigns for staff from major hospital systems which have seen massive furloughs. That means layoffs. They tend to have deeper pockets, which means they have a better chance of coming out of the pandemic.

(41:27) Someone says, "I'm even more concerned that crowdfunding could exacerbate existing health disparities." Really? I think any health disparities need to persist. This is not any evidence that this healthcare as we know it is a benefit to anyone, and so certainly if someone is not getting healthcare, we want to encourage that. So, let's digress here and talk about what is GoFundMe and why you should be disturbed that your doctor is even thinking about a GoFundMe campaign, or even ethically, that he can even participate in a GoFundMe campaign. And there's nothing wrong with GoFundMe, don't get me wrong, but let's see what GoFundMe is. We have a definition of GoFundMe. So, GoFundMe is a fundraiser. So, when you go on GoFundMe, you are asking for money without any obligation of providing a service or benefit to anyone, and no obligation whatever to repay it. It's basically not only charity, yeah, it's charity. Now, what's wrong with the doctor asking for charity? I mean, there's beggars in the street with tin cups, sure. What it says when a doctor agrees to participate in a GoFundMe campaign is that I know that what I am providing is of no value, and I want money anyway.

(43:03) Why would a doctor say that? Well, first of all, because you can see his patients aren't getting better, so certainly there's no value to it, but for a long time he has been getting paid by people that he's not taking care of. In other words, he's been getting paid by government insurance companies, by private insurance companies, maybe by the hospital if he's in a hospital-based practice. And so the idea of feeling obligated to the patient, obligated to provide a service, obligated to be a benefit, long gone, long gone. So, any doctor who is focused on patient care, on patient benefit would say, "What? GoFundMe? No, I want to benefit the patient. I want to benefit the people who are giving me their money. I don't want to accept money, and I'm not providing benefit." Now, I have to tell you, when I had my difficulties with the system and had all financial revenues cut out, no license, put on a do-not-employ list, had no revenue whatever, I did have patients who said, "Oh, Dr. Jones, you should accept donations." Like, donations? What's that? I mean, I'm used to just providing a service and helping people. So, but now we have—when I say we, I mean the collective we, human beings—have the ability to be of help to each other, and it's not GoFundMe, it's Patreon. So, when your doctor takes GoFundMe, a GoFundMe campaign, what he's saying is, "I have not been providing value. I do not intend to provide value. I just want handouts." And that is what is disturbing about this. The fact that they even need handouts, if you look at the economic structure here, they needed handouts a long time ago. And guess what? They got them from the government. The government has been putting money to these practices, and they have been on welfare for a long time and did not realize it.

(45:37) And here it says, "Many hospital systems, particularly those with a high number of patients, who are privileged to be insured and don't rely heavily on Medicare and Medicaid, have surpluses thanks to lucrative procedures, such as elective surgeries and diagnostic tests." However, it is the reliance on government money, Medicare and Medicaid, that allows this economically unsound structure to be created. This economically unsound structure filled with employees that don't, in any way, serve or benefit the patient. And doctors become insensitive to this. They don't realize how they've slid into this, not only welfare mentality, but welfare practice. They're literally in a medical practice that has been surviving on welfare payments. And I would suggest to any doctor that if you are accepting insurance, if you are accepting insurance really of any kind, then you're on welfare. You are on welfare. That the patient has long ceased to be your customer. Your customer is the insurance company. And basically, it puts you on welfare. Basically, someone else is paying you to not be of service for something of no value. And what has happened with the present pandemic is this has been exposed. And even the doctor's mindset is being exposed by their willingness to go to GoFundMe. So, am I suggesting that doctors should go bankrupt, go out of business? Hey, I'm just going to business advisor here. No, I suggest that they should go to Patreon.

(47:11) What is Patreon? Oh, a very different thing. Patreon. Let's do a Patreon. Patreon is a membership platform that makes it easy for creators to get paid. Yeah. So, basically, Patreon—in Patreon, you're providing a service. Maybe it's entertainment, but it's something of value to the people who are paying you. So, I would say if you are someone who's missing your medical care, suggest to your doctor that he do Patreon. Now that puts him in a different mindset. Now he's going to say, "Wait, wait, what service can I provide to my patients during this time that would be of value?" And I would suggest to you, if your doctor has any integrity at all, that there are a lot of things he could do that would be of incredible value to people during this pandemic situation. So Patreon means your doctor who's receiving the Patreon money is providing something of value. It's a membership. And the platform setup is the person setting it up has to provide a value. Whereas GoFundMe, no value. And so when your doctor accepts or sets up a GoFundMe campaign, what he's saying is, "I am not, have not, and will not provide anything of value." And that is a serious communication that you should not overlook.

(49:32) And while this article from Medscape is extremely biased in favor of these doctors, if you look at their financial structure, it's worse than for farmers. I mean, really? You only have one month of practice expenses? Even for a private citizen, they recommend that the private citizen has six months of savings in the bank. So the business, just to be a responsible business, should aim for at least that. And a stream of revenue—in this case, it's vaccines, but it could be anything—where you have a zero markup, another financially irresponsible move, especially when you have so much overhead and administrative expenses just in administering the particular, or delivering the particular product or good to citizens, and then the ongoing maintenance. I mean, if we're going to be honest about the whole vaccine situation, people who get vaccines, they should pay the doctor every year a fee for maintaining accessibility to that record of vaccination. Now, records are electronic, and so how this is going to be done is not clear. But historically, the doctor was responsible for maintaining those records. Actually, right now, doctors are responsible for electronic records, and the overhead is just—it's shocking. It's unbelievable. Totally unbelievable.

(51:02) So, definitely don't want to enter any situation financed through GoFundMe. That is not a good idea. Now, if you have a doctor getting paid through Patreon, there, there is a possibility. In Patreon, the doctor would be working for the people who are paying for the subscription. And therefore, he wouldn't be bound by all the gag orders. I mean, there are tons out there. All the gag orders from the insurance companies. And my practice was from 1990 to 2000. And I refused to sign health insurance contracts because they had gag orders. And literally, the gag order said I could not tell people about any treatment options that were not approved by vague organizations that had never seen patients. Like, maybe, who knows? And that was another reason. That I was aware of a lot of different options. Like, "Hey, you know, why don't you drink more water?" But, mm-mm, mm-mm. Mom's the word. So, I could only give advice about therapies, which I, from my personal experience, observed to be ineffective. And so, you have to wonder about a doctor who signs those insurance contracts. Now, a lot of doctors are insulated from those contracts because they work for an organization that has signed those contracts. And the organization writes the protocols doctors have to follow as a condition of employment. And, of course, conveniently omitted from those protocols is the forbidden information. The information that's literally forbidden or censored by the insurance companies and, of course, drug companies as well.

(53:10) So, don't submit to any GoFundMe. I mean, you can donate by GoFundMe if you like the doctor. That's fine. But definitely don't submit to any GoFundMe-type care. Check out Patreon. And, you know, if you have a doctor, you want to see him, you like the doctor, whatever, then say, "Hey, doc, what about, um, um, what about, uh, Patreon?" And, you know, see what kind of reaction you get. But GoFundMe care is seriously, it's dangerous care. And these doctors, while one can have sympathy for them, they put themselves in a seriously financially irresponsible position. And while the pandemic is unfortunate, and while it has been devastating for them, these physicians were doomed because of their financial structure.

(54:29) Now, what's better than Patreon care? Care that you pay for cash out of pocket. I know, I know. "Oh, doctor, I can't afford it." Guess what? Do without it. You'll be so much healthier. The reason you pay out of pocket is at least then the doctor might not kill you. But make no mistake, there's no benefit to be had. But again, it's like going to a casino to gamble. I mean, should it be outlawed? Of course not. People want to spend their money that way, that's fine. But spend your money that way. Don't give your money to an insurance company or other intermediary, whether it's the government or the insurance company, and have them pervert your experience and create a harmful experience. Remember, all insurance does is allow the doctor to collect money after he kills you. Think about that.

(55:27) All right, we're gonna see if we can find the questions. Yay! Oh, so people who have questions can send them to J-D-A-A-A-N-I-E-L-S. J-D-A-A-A-N-I-E-L-S. Mosey on over here. I think this is it right here. Sometimes when I click these buttons, let's see. Sometimes these questions are easier to find than others. Okie doke. You know, these things popped up.

(57:52) Okay, here we are. We have one here. A good friend of mine—this is from Daniel—was recently diagnosed with having a cardiopulmonary embolism and underwent a hostile procedure to remove a blood clot. Post-procedure, her doctor insisted she take the drug Eliquis. What are your thoughts on Eliquis? You know, I think anyone who's going to take a drug should google "drug space package insert" and should read all of the potential complications. If you are not willing to do that, then you definitely should not take the drug. So, I've done this for Eliquis a few times. Here it is. It's called Eliquis and dash FDA. Let me see if they give you the—yes, here it is. Okay, so it's highlights of prescribing information—two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Oh, how many pages is this thing?

(59:35) Okay, Eliquis can cause bleeding. You may have a higher risk of bleeding if you take Eliquis and other medications like aspirin or arthritis pills or warfarin. Any medicine that contains heparin. SSRIs, which is antidepressants. And you may bruise more easily and take longer than usual for any bleeding to stop. Now, who should not take it? If you have any type of abnormal bleeding, side effects, chest pain or chest tightness, aka a heart attack. Same chest symptoms, by the way, of the pulmonary embolus that it's trying to treat. Swelling of your face or tongue, trouble breathing or wheezing, yeah. Another pulmonary embolus, right? Feeling dizzy or faint. So, it's pretty bad news. If I had... First of all, I wouldn't have a pulmonary embolus because I make sure I drink plenty of water. But, let's say I had such bad luck. Whatever, I stop drinking my water, I get dehydrated and I get a blood clot of all places in my lungs. What I would do is I would mix a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar, one tablespoon of cayenne pepper, and I would swallow that. And I would take that at least once an hour while awake. I would not take Eliquis. I probably wouldn't even go to the hospital. But I have actually assisted people with that, and it has caused their blood clots to actually dissolve. The idea that you need surgery to remove a blood clot is... Can we do a facepalm moment? Ha, ha, ha. Can we play some sad music? Can we pray? Yeah, but I would personally not... I would not do it. I would not take that or any other drug for that matter.

(1:02:01) Let's do another one. How can... Okay, how does Dr. Daniels account for all the nursing home deaths worldwide? Nursing homes have a very high death rate, which is why people don't want their elderly loved ones to go to a nursing home, because most people entering nursing homes die from the very difficult conditions. So, what is happening is people who die in nursing homes are continuing to die. The deaths are simply being labeled as COVID. And that's essentially what's happening. Now, another more... There are many more sinister things going on. For that, you'd have to go to my... attend my customer appreciation webinar, which is going to be May 25th in the afternoon. So if you buy Vitality Capsules before May 25th, 3 p.m., you will get the full, the full monty. But fundamentally, or basically, nursing homes are pretty much death chambers. And if you've ever visited a nursing home, that's pretty obvious on the face of it. You walk in, and literally there is the smell of death. So a lot of what has happened with the present pandemic is it has been manufactured by counting deaths in nursing homes. So nursing homes are a hotbed of death. They introduce a new vaccine. They vaccinate the folks in the nursing home. 10% die. So this has happened in the past. And so going to a nursing home is like going to a government-authorized human extermination center. And to say that people are dying in nursing homes, I mean, it's like saying a roach sprayed by an exterminator died. Well, what do you expect?

(1:04:07) So most people who care about their elderly relatives or their elderly loved ones don't even allow them in a nursing home. My mother is 87. We have made extreme arrangements for her to never, ever go to a nursing home. You know, she has children, grandchildren in the area. Everyone is ready to step in and do whatever needs to be done to take care of whatever need she might have. She has one daughter who lives with her 24-7. So our feeling is not to allow her to go into a nursing home because we know that she would die much sooner for having been there and that she would basically be put down like a dog. So that's the nursing home story.

(1:05:01) All right, we are out of time. You're done! So send your questions to jdaaniels, and we will pick a couple each time to cover. And as always, think happens and visit us at vitalitycapsules.com. If you have a question that has not been answered and you would like personal attention getting that answered, then there are limited appointments available at vitalitycapsules.com at the website. You just click appointment. All right, awesome. See you, and remember, think happens.