Your Doctor is Your Enemy
”Why inexpensive treatments for arthritis are discarded in favor of drugs and surgery”
It affects 1 in 3 people between 18–64 years old.
It creates an 18.1% higher chance to develop major depression.
In 2011 it accounted for 17.3 percent of all hospitalizations.
The most effective treatment option for it costs $495, but you’ll probably never hear about it due to the uncontrollable greed that runs rampant through our healthcare system.
“It’s a relatively slow progression until osteoarthritis insidiously wreaks damage enough that you realize it’s a downhill, chronic affliction” — George McKiel, Osteoarthritis Fighter and Past Co-chair, Canadian Arthritis Network Consumer Advisory Council
Arthritis (all types) accounted for total earnings losses and medical costs of $304 Billion, 1% of the TOTAL US GDP in 2013.
It is the leading cause of opioid abuse and disability and if you don’t experience any arthritis symptoms, be thankful, because the lifetime risk of developing symptomatic knee OA is 45 PERCENT. This is a morbid disease which, in the age of 5G internet speeds, supersonic air travel, and re-usable rockets, is currently remedied by gobbling chemicals that inhibit the brain from saying that something is wrong while simultaneously destroying other important organs to fill time until the patient is eligible to have metal drilled into their body to replace the problematic tissue.
There may not be an injection or pill which reignites the production of cartilage growth and its associated synovial fluid which facilitates lubrication, but…
There exist devices that are proven to reduce pain by as much as 40% and are proven to help the user build muscle!
With that being said, why does arthritis continue to force at least 172 million missed workdays each year costing the US economy more than $100 Billion? Why is total knee replacement surgery, a procedure which cost Medicare $3.5 Billion in 2011, still the single most costly procedure to our healthcare system? Why, in 2020, is the basic degradation of our joints still such a heavy weight on society?
Greed
Exercise is proven to be the best remedy for knee arthritis, but it is a catch 22. It is hard to exercise when in pain so the problem compounds on itself over time. The emergence of new orthotic devices has the capability to make a dramatic impact on the knee osteoarthritis epidemic by facilitating exercise, but whether they will get their chance to or not remains to be seen. The “Guardian Rehabilitator”, available on www.freebodytech.com, and the “Levitation 2” available on https://springloadedtechnology.com/ are proven to delay the need for knee replacement surgeries ($49,000 average total lifetime cost for each). They are proven to facilitate motion enabling users to move faster, longer, and easier. They are proven to reduce osteoarthritis pain. They have each been written about in numerous major medical journals and have the potential to improve how we, as a nation, approach the treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis, but they will have to overcome 2 major obstacles first.
Unconscionable Up-charging
American hospitals and healthcare clinics consistently take advantage of customers’ naivete and desperation to heal by overcharging patients 2–3x the retail price for all kinds of healthcare services, including knee braces. In March, 2019 Esteban, a sprained MCL patient, was prescribed a hinged “DonJoy” brace. Aetna Insurance covered $52.59 leaving Estaban to pay……$829.41. The retail price for the exact same DonJoy brace? $242.51. When questioned about the bill, an Aetna spokesperson wrote that
“while the cost of a knee brace, or any other health care service, is determined by the negotiated rate between the health care provider and the health plan, the starting point is the charge from the health care provider.”
Healthcare providers inflate the cost of basic services to make more money by taking advantage of their position of power over patients. FreeBody Technology and Springloaded Technology will need to pull off a miracle to carve out a place in the market amongst existing anti-patient healthcare provider coalitions.
Pre-Meditated Negligence
The other obstacle that FreeBody and Springloaded Technology will have to overcome is the profitability of Total Knee Arthroplasty surgeries, the very procedure they work to prevent or delay. There are a total of around 25,000 Orthopedic Knee Surgeons in the US who conduct a combined 790,000 knee replacement surgeries each year. These surgeons get paid on average $1,430 per knee replacement equating to $45,188 made by each surgeon each year for replacing deteriorated knees. Good luck pitching the product to these doctors which will make them less money!
The year is 2020, Mars is within reach, cars are beginning to drive themselves and there exist devices that can reduce the crushing impact of knee osteoarthritis. The question is no longer IF we can treat this condition, it is whether our healthcare system will put patients first to allow it to happen.
