Mobile Alabama MD & Medical Practice Settle Medicare, Medicaid & TRICARE Fraud Claims

The Department of Justice, United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District, announced that Mobile, Alabama physician Dr. James Matthew Crumb, MD (AL license number MD.24535, AL Controlled Substances Certificate ACSC.245, National Provider Identifier: 1629079793 ) a Physical Medicine and Rehabilitative physician who currently practices as Mobility Metabolism and Wellness (MMW), and a local neurosurgeon group Coastal Neurological Institute, P.C. (CNI), 3280 Dauphin Street, Suite A, Mobile, AL 36606-4060, (NPI:1740212174), have collectively paid $1.4 million to settle allegations that they violated the False Claims Act (“FCA”) by engaging in fraudulent schemes to maximize payment from the Medicare, Medicaid, and TRICARE health care programs.

In late December 2015, the United States Attorney’s Office filed a civil lawsuit against Defendants CNI, Crumb, and MMW, on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense, alleging that the Defendants knowingly billed federal health care programs for

Deep Dish Pizza: A How-To Guide

Who doesn‘t like pizza?

Why, it’s practically unAmerican to not like pizza! Have you ever made your own pizza at home? Ever wanted to make a Deep Dish Pizza at home? Good news – you can! And I’ll share images and a recipe which will help get you started.

This may come as a complete surprise to some, but pizza is BIG BUSINESS in the United States.

Top 50 Pizza Chains’ Annual Sales by State (Click to enlarge)

And as Marketplace Host and Senior Editor Kai Ryssdal says, “but first, let’s do the numbers…”

According to CHD Expert, a foodservice industry marketing trends & data organization, at the end of September 2016, there were 76,723 pizza restaurants in operation in the United States.

In their 2016 Pizza Consumer Trend Report, foodservice industry researcher Technomic found that 41% of consumers polled say they eat pizza once a week, a 55% increase from the 26% reported only 2 years ago.

And a 2016 Morgan Stanley report found that pizza delivery is a $30 billion industry, but could be be worth over $210 billion — which is the total amount Americans currently spent on off-premise dining. And of that $30 billion figure, over 1/3 – $11 billion – are delivery orders which are placed online, and nearly 2/3 of those online orders are… pizza.

So with impressive data like that, it should come as no surprise that a Harris Poll found that Americans’ No. 1 favorite comfort food is pizza, which also had twice as many votes as any other dish… including chocolate.

Now, for a recipe, and the how-to.

There are many seemingly innumerable styles of pizza, which vary with stuffed crusts, in shape, size, ingredients, and any other number of variations in pizza, and fortunately, this one will be simple enough to make at home.

We’re going to make the entire thing, including the crust.

What you’ll need is

Will That Be Cash, Pizza, Praise, Or Nothing?

Decades ago, Dale Carnegie expounded on the power of praise in his classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People.

In it, he wrote in part that, “…there is one longing – almost as deep, almost as imperious, as the desire for food or sleep – which is seldom gratified. It is what Dewey calls

German Grocer Aldi To Heat Up U.S. Competition

German Discount Grocer Aldi Sets U.S. Expansion Plan

Aldi says it will open nearly 900 stores, invest $5 billion over five years

Aldi says it will open 900 stores and invest $5 billion over five years. Photo by Anthony Devlin/Zuma Press

By Heather Haddon
June 11, 2017 9:00 p.m. ET

Competition in the U.S. grocery sector is about to get more fierce.

Discount grocery chain Aldi is expected to unveil on Monday plans to invest $5 billion to open nearly 900 stores and remodel hundreds more in the U.S.

The expansion, over the next five years, puts the German grocer on track to becoming the third-largest food retailer in the U.S. by store count, behind the larger Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Kroger Co., and a growing threat to traditional food retailers.

Aldi said it is expected to have a total of 2,500 locations across the U.S. by 2022. Its plan comes as another German discounter, Lidl, is set to open its first 10 stores in the U.S. on Thursday as part of a multiyear expansion.

Executives at Wal-Mart and Kroger have been preparing for the growth of the discounters for years. Wal-Mart has been sprucing up its stores and slashing prices on some products in select markets, while Kroger continues to drive down costs to compete.

But the discounters could have a big impact on the U.S. grocery market as they did in Europe. Their market share there has steadily grown while traditional supermarkets have seen theirs fall.

Deep discount chains in the U.S. are expected to grow by up to 10% a year through 2020, five times the rate of traditional grocers, according to a recent report by consulting firm Bain & Co.

“It should absolutely be more than scary to traditional grocers and retailers,” said Mikey Vu, a partner in Bain’s retail practice.

Many shoppers in the U.S. are unfamiliar with Aldi. The chain has been in the U.S. since

Beat the Heat with Buttermilk Popsicles?

A good and longtime friend shared recently about making buttermilk popsicles at home with family, using a recipe presumably which came from Steel City Pops, a trendy nouveau foodery in Birmingham, AL. And giving credit where credit is due, Alabama has some mighty fine eateries, and an amazing wealth in it’s diversity of food. As evidence of that fact, Chef Frank Stitt, owner of Birmingham restaurants Highlands Bar and Grill, Bottega Restaurant, and Chez Fonfon has been on the James Beard Foundation Award‘s radar for quite some time, and most recently, NPR recognized the excellent oysters produced by Murder Point Oysters using farming methods in that Bayou La Batre, Alabama Gulf Coast town, which were also feted by Chef Emeril Lagasse. Alabama food is a literal treasure of gastronomic proportion. And it’s not just limited to the holiest of holies… barbecue.
(👉Get your Alabama Barbecue Trail app here!👈😋)

Now, I confess an aversion to buttermilk except in cooking. And the reason, of course, is that I’ve tried it. And not just once. In fact, I recollect as a youth visiting with relatives in

Which Are The Best & Worst States For Registered Nurses?

Like most segments of the economy, the nursing industry is in a state of significant transition under the weight of major socioeconomic dynamics — from the aging U.S. population to the student-loan crisis to concerns about the future of key entitlement programs. But such concerns are not unique among recent graduates, regardless of industry.

More specific to nursing professionals are the various day-to-day demands placed on them, such as mandatory overtime, overstaffing, unionization and allegations of systemic disrespect. Despite those challenges, however, aspiring nurses have much to look forward to upon certification. Nursing occupations are some of the most lucrative careers with the lowest unemployment rates in the U.S. In fact, the industry is expected to grow at more than double the rate of the average occupation through 2024.

With such bright projections, WalletHub’s analysts took stock of the nursing industry to help registered nurses, particularly the newly minted of the bunch, lay down roots in areas that are conducive to both personal and professional success. We did so by comparing the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 18 key metrics that collectively speak to the nursing-job opportunities in each market. Below, you can check out our findings, expert commentary on the state of the nursing industry as well as the methodology we used to conduct this report.

BIG INSURANCE Companies Fear Single Payer For ONE Reason

A friend had shared the opening paragraph, upon which I remarked.

My response follows.

“At the risk of stating the obvious, I feel compelled to note that insurance companies do not exist to provide health care. They exist to make money. Big money. Big money at your time of greatest vulnerability. This happens by raising income as much as possible and limiting “risk” as much as possible. Now go ponder the implications.”

—/—

And that is the single greatest reason why a

United Airlines Fly Flap Grounded In Written Policy

Like many, I recently read a couple articles about the dust-up involving United Airlines and their Dress Code for Employees who fly off-duty.

Most notably, the New York Times reported on the story, as of course, did others, and another unrelated passenger who took to Twitter to express their thoughts. The Times even interviewed the unrelated passenger, of whom they wrote, “The incident was first reported on Twitter by Shannon Watts, a passenger at the airport who was waiting to board a flight to Mexico. In a telephone interview from Mexico on Sunday afternoon, Ms. Watts said she noticed two visibly upset teenage girls leaving the gate next to hers. Both were wearing leggings.”

I confess that, in my haste, I made some remarks, in the form of questions, and later found a site which

Attorney, Entrepreneur, Banker Donald V. Watkins Offers POTUS Trump Advice

Donald V. Watkins is an American Attorney, Entrepreneur, and Banker.

Donald V. Watkins is an American Attorney, Entrepreneur and Banker.

–––//–––

March 26, 2017

Open Letter to President Donald J. Trump

Dear President Trump,

I am a longtime political independent who cherishes America’s form of participatory democracy. Even though my ancestors were slaves who worked on plantations in Mississippi, my parents, siblings and other relatives finally got a chance to vote after Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and President Lyndon Johnson signed it. I have even held elective office within this democracy.

I believed in America when I could not drink from public water fountains or use bathrooms that were reserved for “Whites Only”. I did not sit in an integrated classroom until I entered college at Southern Illinois University in 1966. I attended law school at the University of Alabama from 1970 to 1973 on a desegregation scholarship awarded to me by the national office of the NAACP. I arrived on campus a full year before any black athlete played on a sports team at the University.

Donald Trump, 45th United States President, official portrait

When I started practicing law in 1973, a few diehard segregationists in Alabama’s court system openly referred to me as the “nigger lawyer from Montgomery” during official court proceedings. I was not addressed as “Attorney Watkins” or “Mr. Watkins” in these courtrooms until sometime in 1976. A few judges just barked out instruction to me without ever looking me in the eyes or addressing me as a human being.

I got through all of these degrading experiences by focusing on the American flag in each courtroom I entered. To me,

Prolific Hybridized Drought & Roundup Resistant Marijuana Grows Year ‘Round, Produces 20x More

From the archives…

Imagine a marijuana that will grow in summer and winter, and is resistant to Roundup©!

Already, there’s another weed in the southeast USA that’s growing in drought conditions, up to ten feet tall, which chokes out cotton and damages the mechanical harvesters if they’re run through the field in an attempt to harvest the cotton without removing the noxious weed.

Recently, in the Mexican state of Michoacan, a hybrid marijuana plant was found that will survive herbicide applications and cutting efforts, and is so prolific that it produces 20x or more than the average marijuana plant. In fact, unless it is pulled up by the root, it will continue to grow!

Remember… where there is demand, there WILL be a supply!

Mexico Troops Find Hybrid Marijuana Plant

By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer
Wed Dec 20, 2006 5:35 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061220/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/mexico_drugs&printer=1

Soldiers trying to seize control of one Mexico’s top drug-producing regions found the countryside teeming with a new hybrid marijuana plant that can be cultivated year-round and cannot be killed with pesticides.

Soldiers fanned out across some of the new fields Tuesday, pulling up plants by the root and burning them, as helicopter gunships clattered overhead to give them cover from a raging drug war in the western state of Michoacan. The plants’ roots survive if they are doused with herbicide, said army Gen. Manuel Garcia.

“These plants have been genetically improved,” he told a handful of journalists allowed to accompany soldiers on a daylong raid of some 70 marijuana fields. “Before we could cut the plant and destroy it, but this plant will come back to life unless it’s taken out by the roots.”

The new plants, known as

In Praise Of @Arbys Denali-Style Meat Mountain Sandwich: Have you tried it?

Arby’s promotional image of their “Meat Mountain” sandwich, a “secret menu,” hand-made custom sandwich which contains every meat and cheese offering they carry.

You MUST TRY THIS!

Arby’s has a sandwich called “Meat Mountain”…

…but it’s NOT listed on the menu!

In a manner of speaking, it’s been somewhat “under the radar” except to a few with specialized knowledge of it. It’s like a word-of-mouth menu item.

Apparently, it’s been around for quite some time, at least two, and very nearly three years – at least since August 2014.

Store associates will make it for customers who ask for it by name.

What is it?

Free Enterprise And #Beer

I am a FIRM PROPONENT of ENTREPRENEURSHIP, FREE ENTERPRISE, and FAIR COMPETITION.

For that reason, and others, I have NOT purchased an AB-InBev product in quite some time, not only because of the inferior quality of their products, but because it is a greedy, global, monolithic oligopolic (virtually monopoly) enterprise.

It is NOT an American company, and ceased being an American company when it SOLD OUT to the Belgian brewing company InBev for around $52 billion in 2008. From then, the company was named AB-InBev.

To add insult to injury, the U.S. Department of Justice OK’d a deal in 2016 in which AB-InBev BOUGHT SABMiller’s U.S. business which in turn, would allow Molson Coors to

Citizens United Ruling Violates Equal Protection Clause

Nick Hanauer, a multi-billionaire about whom few have likely heard, authored a highly publicized article not too long ago warning about wealth inequity. Increasingly, the wealthy are realizing that a strategy of cutting taxes upon the wealthy and their corporations is not a recipe for American success, precisely for the reason that it adversely affects economic infrastructure, and jobs, among other damages.

However, one needn’t be wealthy to realize and understand that money, and the unreasonable desire for it known as avarice (an extreme form of greed), and the unwieldy power that accompanies it, are corrupting influences in any nation, and particularly in our United States because of SCOTUS ruling in the 2010 Citizens United v Federal Election Commission decision which

LOGIC: If bin Laden is not dead, there was no @realDonaldTrump #GoldenShowerGate. Here’s why.

Most would agree that Osama bin Laden is dead, that he was killed by a TOP SECRET CIA-led joint U.S. Military operation code-named Operation Neptune Spear, which was executed by the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group, aka DEVGRU, or commonly as SEAL Team Six.

DEVGRU and the Army’s 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (1st SFOD-D), aka “Delta Force,” are the DOD’s elite counterterrorism task force units, both which operate under the Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC).

Also involved in Operation Neptune Spear was the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) “Nightstalkers,” (SOAR(A)) from Ft. Campbell, KY, and the CIA’s Special Activities Division (SAD), the most secretive of all clandestine agencies, whose members – if compromised – are denied by the United States Government.

But it was the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group’s DEVGRU that was Operation Neptune Spear’s fatal piercing point for Osama bin Laden.

The general public has not ever seen images of Osama bin Laden’s corpse. Nor are they likely ever to see them. At least not in this lifetime.

In addition to President of the United States Barack Obama, one of the less-than-fifty-people who ever saw them was Republican Senator James Inhofe, who described in part what he saw to CNN: “One of the shots went through the ear and out through an eye socket, or through the eye socket and out through the ear and exploded, that was the kind of ordinance it was. That caused the brains to be hanging out of the eye socket. Absolutely no question about it. A lot of people out there say: ‘I want to see the pictures,’ but I’ve already seen them. That was him. He’s gone. He’s history.”

President Obama, who ordered the mission, said in part to CBS News that, “Keep in mind that we are absolutely certain this was him. We’ve done DNA sampling and testing. And so there is no doubt that we killed Osama bin Laden. It is important for us to make sure that very graphic photos of somebody who was shot in the head are not floating around as an incitement to additional violence. As a propaganda tool.”

Following President Obama’s White House announcement May 2, 2011 that bin Laden had been killed, speculation quickly arose that the death was falsified, that it – like some imagine the Moon Landing – was somehow “faked.”

Lack of publicly available images and details on the TOP SECRET Operation Neptune Spear only fueled specious speculation which, like wildfire, spread throughout the tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy community.

It was nearly two years later, in February 2013, that

“Too Big To Fail” Banks Get Bailout, Gave Customers The Shaft

Chalk One Up for the Working Man

By Donald V. Watkins
©Copyrighted and Published (via Facebook) on December 18, 2016
Used with permission

On Thursday, I tried a case for a close friend on mine in the Jefferson County, Alabama District Court in Bessemer, Alabama. My friend is a hard working Bessemer resident and family man whose world was turned upside down when Citibank sold his credit card account to San Diego-based junk debt buyer, Midland Funding, LLC. He is one of millions of bank credit card customers each year whose accounts are bundled in loan pools and then sold to junk debt buyers without the customer’s knowledge.

Midland Funding is one of several mega junk debt buyers in America. This group of financial sharks buys unsecured bank debt for pennies on a dollar and then strong arms debtors who miss one or more of their monthly payments. Midland is part of a multi-billion industry of shady financial predators.

In my friend’s case, Citibank sold his account to Midland Funding. The balance on the account was $6,800. My friend paid his credit card monthly on a regular basis, but had an unexpected hiccup in his monthly cash flow a couple of years after he opened the account. As a result he failed to make a couple of his payments on time. When this occurred Citibank sold my friend’s account to Midland, and Midland eventually sued my friend. This is how my friend became my client.

Remember, Citibank had a similar hiccup during the Great Recession of 2008. The bank requested and received a total of $181.6 billion in federal bailout assistance to keep from collapsing. In fact, Citibank led the banking industry’s “welfare queens” by receiving more financial bailout assistance than any big bank in the U.S.

Citibank’s “Thank You” to the taxpayers like my client, whose tax dollars made the financial bailout possible for these big banks, was the low-down act of selling his credit card account to a shark like Midland Funding. The big banks were quick to take taxpayer-sponsored financial assistance, but slow to give taxpayers similar financial assistance in return.

[Editor’s Note: Alamerica Bank, which is

End ObamaCare’s Health Insurance Monopoly

Fact is, “ObamaCare” – which is properly known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or ACA for short – though it’s monikered with POTUS Obama’s name, was largely a Republican brainchild from the über-conservative Heritage Institution.

The cornerstone of the act is predicated upon two items which are the very heart of the act: 1.) Guaranteed Coverage, and; 2.) Community Rating.

In was, in essence

How And Why Insurance Companies Control Your Medical Care

Some have accurately, and justifiably observed that the Affordable Care Act, also colloquially known as “ObamaCare,” is a big fat, sloppy wet kiss to the Big Insurance industry and their for-profit, Wall $treet corporate masters, because their profits have continued to soar since it’s inception. Note that UnitedHealth Group reported a profit of $11 billion (on revenues of more than $157 billion) in 2015, up from $10.3 billion (on revenues of $131 billion) in 2014. Consider also how Anthem’s business changed in just one recent year. At the end of 2014, the majority of Anthem’s revenues still came from its Commercial Health Insurance customers. During 2015, however, revenues from their commercial operations actually declined 4.2%, to $37.6 billion, while revenues from their government operations skyrocketed 21%, to $40.1 billion. A significant reason why, is because of the big investments Insurance Companies continue to make in House and Senate campaigns. As a result, the Insurance Industry’s tentacles will likely only get deeper into both the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Medical equipment is pictured on the wall of an examination room inside a Kaiser Permanente health clinic located inside a Target retail department store in San Diego, California November 17, 2014. Four clinics are scheduled to open to provide pediatric and adolescent care, well-woman care, family planning, and management of chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure for Kaiser members and non-members. REUTERS/Mike Blake (UNITED STATES – Tags: HEALTH BUSINESS SOCIETY) Fair Use

by Christy Ford Chapin

It’s that time of year again. Insurance companies that participate in the Affordable Care Act’s state health exchanges are signaling that prices will rise dramatically this fall.

And if insurance costs aren’t enough of a crisis, researchers are highlighting deficiencies in health care quality, such as unnecessary tests and procedures that cause patient harm, medical errors bred by disjointed or fragmented care and disparities in service distribution.

While critics emphasize the ACA’s shortcomings, cost and quality issues have long plagued the U.S. health care system. As my research demonstrates, we have these problems because insurance companies are at the center of the system, where they both finance and manage medical care.

If this system is so flawed, how did we get stuck with it in the first place?

Answer: Organized physicians.

As I explain in my book, “Ensuring America’s Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Care System,” from the 1930s through the 1960s, the American Medical Association, the foremost professional organization for physicians, played a leading role in implementing the insurance company model.

What existed before health insurance companies?

Between the 1900s and the 1940s, patients flocked to what were called “prepaid physician groups,” or “prepaid doctor groups.”

Prepaid groups offered inexpensive health care because

UNC Chapel Hill Research: Medicaid Expansion Helps Rural Hospitals

As of the date of this posting – Monday, 19 September 2016 – there are 19 states which have NOT Expanded Medicaid, and Alabama is one of those 19.

In alphabetical order, they are:

Current Condition of Medicaid Expansion
Has YOUR state expanded Medicaid?
Orange=NO

1.) Alabama
2.) Florida
3.) Georgia
4.) Idaho
5.) Kansas
6.) Maine
7.) Mississippi
8.) Missouri
9.) Nebraska
10.) North Carolina
11.) Oklahoma
12.) South Carolina
13.) South Dakota
14.) Tennessee
15.) Texas
16.) Utah
17.) Virginia
18.) Wisconsin
19.) Wyoming

 

 

 

 

 

Lack Of Medicaid Expansion Hurts Rural Hospitals More Than Urban Facilities

By Shefali Luthra September 7, 2016

It isn’t news that in rural parts of the country, people have a harder time accessing good health care. But new evidence suggests opposition to a key part of the 2010 health overhaul could be adding to the gap.

The finding comes from a study published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs, which analyzes how the states’ decisions on implementing the federal health law’s expansion of Medicaid, a federal-state insurance program for low-income people, may be influencing rural hospitals’ financial stability. Nineteen states opted not to join the expansion.

Rural hospitals have long argued they were hurt by the lack of Medicaid expansion, which leaves many of their patients without insurance coverage and strains the hospitals’ ability to better serve the public. The study suggests they have a point.

Specifically, the researchers, from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, found that

Your Tax Dollars At Work: Taxpayers Subsidize CEO Pay, Here’s How #BonusLoophole

Executive Excess 2016: The Wall Street CEO Bonus Loophole

This 23rd annual report reveals how taxpayers are subsidizing financial crisis windfalls.

By Sarah Anderson and Sam Pizzigati, August 31, 2016

This report is the first to calculate how much taxpayers have been subsidizing executive bonuses at the nation’s largest banks.

The study focuses on a 1993 Clinton administration reform that was intended to rein in runaway CEO pay by capping the tax deductibility of executive compensation at $1 million. But the new rule included a huge loophole for stock options and other “performance” pay. As a result, the more corporations hand out in executive bonuses, the lower their tax bill. This perverse incentive for excessive compensation has been a major factor in the explosion of CEO pay.

The financial bailout program closed this loophole for recipients, but only until

On Executive Compensation

The Mosaic Scriptural principle (which is also referenced in the New Testament) that “you should not muzzle the ox that treads out the grain” is certainly a principle with and by which we should compensate people for their labor. However, there is little disagreement that the committees that set the rewards far too often overcompensate those whom are charged with organizational oversight.

There is something to be said for fair and just compensation according to the terms of a contract, and the wishes and desires of those whom issue them. 

Why then, is it that when