Your Citizens Coalition For Responsible Healthcare, Inc. is now accepting membership applications and dues, we are soliciting volunteer skills and talents and we welcome your donations.
Download a membership application
Donations and applications may be mailed to:
Citizens Coalition For Responsible Healthcare, Inc.
P.O. Box 1138
Roanoke, VA 24006-1138
You may Contact us:
Email: personalchoice@responsiblehealthcare.org
Click the Mission Statement button on the left side of your screen to view the Citizens Coalition's mission statement:
Hundreds of citizens attended our first meeting at the Ramada Inn September 9th. Click the You Tube link on the left side of your screen to view some spirited video from that event:
Listed below is a partial list of concerns that citizen-patients have expressed to the Coalition about healthcare. In Roanoke, Virginia, many citizens are concerned about the practices and business strategies being employed by the Carilion Clinic and its affiliates. Please let your Coalition know if you have experienced problems with your healthcare, with the Carilion Clinic and any of its organizations and with other medical providers, in any of the areas listed. We are now gathering these patient reports and will be addressing them in the coming days.
OPEN REFERRALS
The Citizens Coalition for Responsible Healthcare, Inc. encourages medical referrals openly made among practitioners and a patient's right to personal choice in selecting his or her healthcare providers. Limiting referrals for consultation and testing has been referred to in Roanoke, Virginia by Carilion Clinic management as patient marketing "leakage", when it is away from the Carilion Clinic to other medical resources. Your personal physician may come under pressure (perhaps financially or otherwise) to limit his or her referrals to colleagues, specialists and services only within a group, a practice or a clinical system, such as within the Carilion Clinic group of entities, in order to limit such so-called "leakage". If you feel that your choice of medical services and choice of medical practitioners has been limited in this manner, please e-mail us at personalchoice@responsiblehealthcare.org and write us about your experiences.
ANTICOMPETITIVE BEHAVIOR
The Citizens Coalition for Responsible Healthcare, Inc. encourages fair charges by medical service providers. If you have information that an organized medical practice or system, such as the Carilion Clinic and its hundreds of affiliated services and practitioners, is charging fees for services that are higher than like services available from other providers in the same geographic area, please e-mail us at pricing@responsiblehealthcare.org and write us about your experience. Send us your information about competitive prices, service availability and how charges are discounted for you, or are not discounted. You may mail your itemized statements for such services to the Citizens Coalition for Responsible Healthcare, Inc., Post Office Box 1138, Roanoke, VA 24006-1138.
PRICING
The Citizen Coalition for Responsible Healthcare, Inc. encourages competitive pricing and fair medical service charges by all healthcare providers. The voice of the consumer has been missing from negotiations that set the actual discounts of medical charges from the "master charge list" or similar chare methods used by medical practices and hospitals. If you have information about medical service pricing in your area, including the Southwest Virginia where the Carilion Clinic does business, share with us the price charges, discounts and disqualifications from payment that are being sent to patients, to uninsured persons, to patient insurers, and to major employers. Please e-mail us at anticompetitive@responsiblehealthcare.org with your information.
MEDICAL RECORDS
The Citizens Coalition for Responsible Healthcare, Inc. encourages patients to request of their medical service providers that their medical records be shared by and among their medical providers in a prompt and efficient manner that is consistent with their medical needs. If you have been told by your health care provider, whether at the Carilion Clinic or elsewhere, that they are unable or cannot refer you to an independent physician because the person your request for referral may not be able to access your medical records, please e-mail us at medicalrecords@responsiblehealthcare.org and write us about your experiences.
CONSULTATION SCHEDULING
The Citizens Coalition for Responsible Healthcare, Inc. is investigating how consultation referrals and scheduling best serves the interests of patients. Open and transparent communication with you about your healthcare options, choices and referrals, when requested to the patient's medical practitioner of choice, are a patient's entitlement about his or her healthcare. If you have experienced refusal by a healthcare practitioner to facilitate your fright to choose, please let us know. If, for example, you have been told by a physician that they will not refer you to an independent physician for consultation because the independent physicians are not included a scheduling system, group, or billing system, please e-mail us at consultations@responsiblehealthcare.org and write us about your experiences.
COLLECTIONS ACTIVITIES
The Citizens Coalition for Responsible Healthcare, Inc. recognizes that many of the medical business activities the Carilion Clinic and its affiliates are as a not-for-profit company, tax exempt charitable organization. The Coalition is investigating the practice of the Carilion Clinic of obtaining court judgments, based upon a process of evaluating patients' medical creditworthiness and ability to pay. Many of the judgments appear to be against uninsured citizens of Southwestern Virginia. The medical charges represented by those judgments may be at this highest, undiscounted rate; If you have been taken to court by you hospital or medical practitioner, as they seek payment for services provided to you, please e-mail us at collections@responsiblehealthcare.org with the details of your experience.
COLLECTIONS AND PRE-SCREENING ACTIVITIES
The Citizens Coalition for Responsible Healthcare, Inc. recognizes that responsible use of medical services is a citizen obligation. Likewise, responsible and appropriate charges and availability of medical services is an obligation of medical services providers. The Coalition invites your report about experiences that you may have from pre-screening you or your loved ones about your resources and your ability to pay before emergency medical services are provided to you. If you have been turned-down for medical services, or advised that you medical credit worthiness prevents you from qualifying for medical services, particularly emergency medical services, write us your experiences at collections@responsiblehealthcare.org with the details of your experience.
To join Citizens Coalition For Responsible Healthcare, Inc. and support ourwork, request a membership application.
Annual dues are $20.00 per person. See the Application form for eligibility and to volunteer.
We are enrolling members and volunteers.