Barnes and Noble invited me to talk about How to Play HMO HARDBALL at a book signing event. I told my listeners that HMOs and their doctors preach that patients who won’t take "responsibility" deserve the blame for poor quality healthcare.

The very next week, friends who had attended my book signing were given a brochure on "Patient Rights and Responsibilities" during a doctor’s visit. They asked me how to take "responsibility" to enforce their rights. The doctor and his nurse had played a dirty trick to prevent the wife from remaining with her husband during a medical procedure.

I took the brochure home and discussed it with my wife, an HMO HARDBALL veteran. Our friends’ insurance company, CIGNA, contracts with a publicly traded physician management company, MedPartners. MedPartners owns physician practices. Our friends’ doctors are MedPartners’ employees.

The MedPartners’ Patient Rights and Responsibilities brochure has an "800" number on the front to call about problems. When she had a free minute, my wife called to get a complaint form for our friends. Sound easy?

• HMO Customer Service clerks and supervisors "stonewall" and "slow dance" patients who ask detailed questions.

• HMOs "rig" complaints by telling patients they only take complaints over the phone without giving patients the chance to review them for accuracy and completeness.

• HMOs tell patients that they can write their own complaint "letters," but will not tell them what to include in the letter or disclose the HMO’s complaint review criteria.

• HMOs tell patients that they must obtain complaint forms from the very doctors they are complaining about.

• HMOs don’t protect patients against retaliation (e.g., terminating treatment) from their doctors as a result of submitting a complaint. HMOs deny the existence of "payback" time.

• HMOs refuse to disclose the details of their complaint "process," so that patients can screen them prior to enrollment.

• HMO customer service supervisors won’t talk to patients unless patients have the power to put their names on my website as patient rights violators.

• Only when HMOs believe that patients will complain to their state’s regulatory agency will they advise them of their legal right to complain to the state.   HMOS try to rig the system with contributions to politicians.

• HMOs promise that their doctors are caring and competent but let medical groups "govern" themselves. HMOs want their doctors to be at your side, not on your side)

Patient Satisfaction Means HARDBALL Interaction!

Listen to Jackie’s tape-recorded conversations with a MedPartners Customer Relations clerk and Supervisor. For ten minutes, the supervisor refused to speak with my wife until she advised that she would report his name as a "patient rights violator" for publication on my How to Play HMO HARDBALL website at www.hmohardball.com. Minutes later, he changed his mind and got on the line.

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Use my patient self-protection manual to enforce your rights.