Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Ankylosing Spondylitis Podcast. I hope this episode finds everybody doing fantastic. I have a huge favor to ask of everybody listening, it doesn't matter where you're at in the world, if you would go to spondypodcast.com and sign up for The Ankylosing Spondylitis Newsletter, and kind of poke around the site and take a look at it, I would really appreciate it. If you have any feedback, use the Contact page to shoot me back any feedback on the web page and tell me what you think what you'd like to see, you know, just what can I do to make it better for everybody. And then, if you are an Apple user, please go out to the iTunes and hit subscribe to the podcast so it gets delivered to you automatically. That really helps. Because the more subscribers that Apple sees for a podcast, then it turns around and shows that to more people. So the more people that subscribe, the better even if you listen on Spotify, if you're still an iPhone user, or any of the other podcast players out there, and you still happen to use it on iPhone, or computer, Mac, whatever, go out to iTunes, subscribe to the show. It just helps, you know, become better, accessible, better visible to everybody else that may be looking for something like this, I would really appreciate it. And if you can leave a review while you're out there, I love it. Once I get them, I'll read them on air and if you put your name in there or give a review, and then shoot me a message through the Contact page on the website and tell me what your screen name is, and that you want me to use your real name. I'll do that too. So whatever works, I'd love to give you credit for the reviews that you leave.
So let's jump right into this week's episode with the Question of the Week. I happen to come across an item on one of the Facebook forums and it was do doctors take kickbacks? Well, the general answer that is Know. Now before you go blowing up my contact page, let me tell you why I say no. The reason is, is because kickbacks by themselves are illegal. A kickback is a payment of funds negotiated up front, usually for some certain type of treatment/service. So, no, there are no kickbacks in the medical field. But what we've all seen when we've gone into doctors offices is that sales rep come in with the lunches. Heck, with my general practitioner in Texas one time we were having an appointment, and he said, “Hey, have you eaten?” And I said, “No why?”. He goes, come on, let's keep talking about your treatment plan and it was when I was getting ready to apply for disability. And he said, Let's go grab a bite to eat, we'll talk about disability. And I said, Fine, let's do it. So we went down and everybody all the employees had already eaten so him and I just sat there and grabbed a bite in the break room and and talked about how to handle the disability application procedure. So that type of lunch happens a lot. But that's not considered a kickback. It's considered a business lunch and that happens in not just the medical field that happens at so many businesses. When I was in the brokerage field, both on the selling side and the wholesaling side, there was lunches, dinners, entertainment flying all over the place. So it's not just something strictly found on the doctor side, and I honestly don't have any problem with it. You know, doctor wants to bring in, that's fine. When my first child was born, she had an issue with reflux, and there was a special type of formula that we had to get for her to drink. This stuff was expensive and this is like 18 years ago. I think that seems to me that stuff was $35 a can. And when I went to the appointment with my now ex wife, we were sitting at the baby doctor's office, and I mentioned something about man, this stuff's expensive. Is there any type of alternatives to it? He said, unfortunately, there's not. Just as he said that, I heard him yell, hey, And I thought he was...
