CCHF Event Shines Light on Affordable Free-Market Medicine for Patients and Doctors

For Immediate Release
September 10, 2018

Cash-Based Surgery Center of Oklahoma Co-Founder Dr. Keith Smith Featured at Sept. 27 Dinner in Minneapolis

ST. PAUL, Minn.—Later this month, Citizens’ Council for Health Freedom (CCHF) will showcase a champion for free-market medicine at its annual dinner and fundraising event in Minneapolis. 

CCHF—a patient-centered national health freedom organization based in St. Paul, Minnesota, which exists to protect health care choices, individualized patient care, and medical and genetic privacy rights—will welcome Dr. Keith Smith of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma to its Sept. 27 event. 

The evening will enable CCHF to continue what it does best—protect patients and doctors from government encroachment; distill complex health care issues into the easy-to-understand Health Freedom Minutes that air on more than 800 radio stations across the country; target the Achilles’ heels of health care policies; and keep the cold-hearted business of health care from destroying the caring mission of medicine. 

“September 27 will be a night of celebration and hope, with a message of urgency,” said CCHF president and co-founder Twila Brase, author of the new book “Big Brother in the Exam Room: The Dangerous Truth About Electronic Health Records.”“CCHF has initiated public engagement campaigns nationwide, and educated citizens about policies and regulations that affect care and coverage, namely how the Affordable Care Act has confiscated American wages and tied the hands of doctors. 

“But as physicians head for the exits, health plans are further empowered against patients, government becomes more intrusive and Medicare slides into insolvency, there is so much more that must be done,” she added. “Dr. Keith Smith has revolutionized medical care and its costs for his patients, and this night will show why that revolution must spread to all corners of the nation.”

Smith is a pioneer in free-market medicine, the founder of the Free-Market Medical Association, and the nationally recognized co-founder and medical director of the cash-based Surgery Center of Oklahoma. He has appeared on CNBC, “The O’Reilly Factor” and NBC Nightly News, and his revolutionary approach to health care pricing has been featured in ABC News, The New York Times and TIME magazine. 

The upcoming CCHF event will begin at 6 p.m. CDT Sept. 27 at Edinburgh USA, 8700 Edinbrook Crossing in Brooklyn Park. A private reception for sponsors will begin at 5:30 p.m., while dinner seating begins at 6:30 p.m. and the dinner and program begin at 7:15 p.m. For more information, sponsorship details or to register, click here or contact CCHF at info@cchfreedom.org or (651) 646-8935. 

The Surgery Center of Oklahoma is a prime example of how affordable care can be when third-party payers are not involved in the interaction between the doctors and patients, Brase said, because third-party bureaucracy, reporting requirements, prior authorizations and paperwork are avoided. 

“This model makes it very simple for the surgeons, the staff and the patients,” she added. “The price is the price is the price. It’s transparent because only the first party and the second party are involved. There’s no third party in the room or interfering in any decision. The Surgery Center of Oklahoma also has no electronic health records. All medical records are paper charts so there are no costs of the government EHR.”

Nearly 300 practices with these same ideals have joined CCHF’s Wedge of Health Freedom (www.JointheWedge.com). A two-year-old initiative of CCHF, The Wedge is aiding in the transformation of America’s health care system by welcoming more than 284 practitioners in 187 clinics across 46 states who use third-party-free direct payment to restore freedom,simplicity, affordability and confidentiality.

The Wedge was launched in June 2016 to address America’s troubled health care system—where high prices and bureaucratic government reporting requirements are the norm; where one-size-fits-all treatments and narrow networks limit patient choices and tie doctors’ hands; where intrusive questionnaires and data-sharing without consent put patients’ privacy at risk; and where impersonal bureaucratic processes and managed care controls inhibit a true doctor-patient relationship. 

The Wedge is a nationwide movement to build public awareness of direct payment, to make this attractive free-trade zone for health care visible, to legislatively defend it and to grow it so large that it can never be taken away. The online center for The Wedge—www.JointheWedge.com—allows doctors to learn how they can operate a Wedge practice, as well as provides patients with a map of Wedge practices so patients can find doctors who incorporate the eight Wedge principles: transparent and affordable pricing, freedom of choice, true patient privacy, no government reporting, no outside interference, cash-based pricing, a protected patient-doctor relationship and all patients welcome. 

“Big Brother in the Exam Room,” published by Beaver’s Pond Press on July 11 and twice ranked as the No. 1 Amazon best-sellerin the Medical History and Records category, exposes how and why Congress forced doctors and hospitals to install a data-collecting, command-and-control surveillance system in the exam room. The extensively researched work also includes the negative impact of EHRs on privacy, personalized care, costs, patient safety and more, according to doctors and data from more than 125 studies. “Big Brother in the Exam Room” is available at www.BigBrotherInTheExamRoom.com.

For more information about CCHF, visit www.cchfreedom.org, its Facebook page or its Twitter feed @CCHFreedom. Read more about “Big Brother in the Exam Room” here, and view the media page for CCHF here. For more about CCHF’s free-market, cash-based care initiative, The Wedge of Health Freedom, visit www.JointheWedge.com, The Wedge Facebook page or follow The Wedge on Twitter @wedgeoffreedom.

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