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This week we are starting our 35th year of practice in Mount Airy!

Recipe of the Month:

Roasted Red Pepper Soup

SERVINGS 6 servings
COURSE Soup
CALORIES 58
PREP TIME
10minutes mins
COOK TIME
30minutes mins
TOTAL TIME
40minutes mins

INGREDIENTS

▢1 tablespoon olive oil
▢1 large onion chopped
▢2 carrots chopped
▢3 celery stalks chopped
▢1 teaspoon salt
▢½ teaspoon black pepper
▢¼ teaspoon crushed red pepper
▢2 garlic cloves chopped
▢2 tablespoons fresh basil leaves plus more for serving
▢1 tablespoon fresh thyme
▢2 12-ounce jars roasted bell peppers drained (about 4)
▢1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes with juices
▢4 cups low sodium vegetable broth
▢¼ cup Greek yogurt

INSTRUCTIONS
Heat the olive oil in a large heavy bottom pot over medium heat. Add the onions, carrots and celery and cook until soft and translucent, 5 minutes. Season with salt, pepper, and crushed red pepper.
Add the garlic, basil, thyme and roasted red peppers, and cook until fragrant, 1-2 more minutes.
Add canned tomatoes and broth, and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
Turn off the heat. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth and completely blended. Stir in the greek yogurt until well combined. Serve with fresh torn basil.

From feelgoodfoodie.net

Tip of the Week

You may not realize that shoveling snow will make you break a sweat, but you will feel much better if you drink some water after you shovel.

Next Monday, you can learn how to do some of those things that make your back hurt with less pain (plus some exercises...)

We are bringing back our "How to do everyday and work activities without hurting yourself " class.

Monday January 27 7:15 pm.

Lifting, getting in and out of a car, and a whole lot more.

It's a FREE class, because we feel the information is important for everyone to know.

You are welcome if you are see.seeing another chiropractor or a physical therapist.

FYI, from The Guardian

US healthcare
Annual ‘winners’ for most egregious US healthcare profiteering announced
Selling body parts without consent and billing desperate parents $97,599 for air transport among worst examples

Marina Dunbar
Tue 7 Jan 2025 16.17 EST

The 2024 “winners” of the annual Shkreli awards, given each year to perpetrators of the most egregious examples of profiteering and dysfunction within the healthcare industry, have been released from the Lown Institute, an independent healthcare thinktank.

The recipients are chosen by a panel made up of health policy experts, clinicians, journalists and advocates. The awards are named after Martin Shkreli, the infamous “pharma bro” who rose to international notoriety after increasing the price of lifesaving anti-parasitic drug Daraprim 50-fold.

“All these stories paint a picture of a healthcare industry in desperate need of transformation. In 2024, healthcare practices were put in the spotlight,” Vikas Saini, president of the Lown Institute, said during the ceremony.

“But doing these awards every year shows us that this is nothing new. We’re hoping that these stories illuminate what changes are needed.”

The No 10 spot this year went to the University of North Texas health science center in Fort Worth for allegedly neglecting to notify next of kin before selling body parts of deceased people.

An NBC News investigation uncovered that the school did not properly receive consent from the deceased or their family members before dissecting and distributing unclaimed bodies, despite the network finding that said family members were fairly easy to identify and contact.

The ninth spot was given to the outdated practice of baby tongue-tie cutting, which continues to be falsely touted as a cure for several ailments, from sleep apnea to nursing trouble, according to the New York Times.

Shady billing practices from Zynex Medical, a company specializing in nerve-stimulation devices used for pain management, took the No 8 slot. Patients received Zynex devices understanding the expense would be covered by insurance, according to a report from Stat News. Users then got unsolicited supplies of items like batteries and electrode pads delivered to them (often excessive quantities), which they ultimately got charged for. The report states that almost 70% of Zynex’s $184m in revenue in 2023 came from batteries and electrode pads.

“This is just classic over-billing. It’s fraud,” Patricia Kelmar, a senior director at the research group US Pirg and judge on the panel, said. “The patients feel that they owe the money because they already received the supplies. We see a lot of this kind of abuse within the pain-management field.”

The seventh spot was given to the case of Sara England and her infant son, Amari Vaca. After the three-month-old experienced severe respiratory distress two months after open-heart surgery, doctors at Natividad medical center in Salinas, California, chose to have him transferred via air ambulance to a medical center in San Francisco. He recovered and Cigna later deemed the service “not medically necessary”. The family was given a $97,599 bill.

“This is happening everywhere,” Kelmar said. “The insurance denial here is that it should have been a ground ambulance instead of air, but how is the patient supposed to know that? This is a mother taking medical advice from the doctors.”

At No 6 was Medicare’s mass billing for urinary catheters. As many as 450,000 beneficiaries had bills for catheters submitted on their behalf in 2023, representing an 800% increase over previous years. Just seven suppliers were responsible for $2bn of these suspicious charges.

Taking the No 5 spot was Memorial medical center (a former non-profit turned for-profit) in Las Cruces, New Mexico, for allegations of refusing cancer treatment to patients or demanding upfront payments, even from those with insurance.

ProPublica’s uncovering of a once-celebrated oncologist’s pattern of malpractice and trails of suspicious deaths came in at No 4. Dr Thomas C Weiner of Helena, Montana, reportedly subjected one patient to unnecessary cancer treatments for more than a decade, amid a myriad of other shocking revelations.

Lumakras, a cancer drug from Amgen that was granted accelerated FDA approval at a daily dose of 960mg, despite findings that a 240mg dose offered similar efficacy with reduced toxicity and risk of side effects, grabbed the third spot.

“Pharma companies have that same incentive to get a return on profits,” said Kelmar. “The healthcare industry is a business, and businesses will try to get the highest profits possible.”

At No 2 was the behemoth that is UnitedHealth and how it’s become the fourth-largest business in the nation. Doctors for United have reported pressure to reduce time spent with patients, and make patients seem as sick as possible through aggressive medical coding tactics.

In a highly competitive year, the top spot went to Steward Health Care, whose CEO, Ralph de la Torre, is accused of prioritizing private-equity profits over patient care. His financial scheming led to bankruptcy, leaving hospitals in shambles, employees laid off and communities with less healthcare access.

“I want to say that this is our backyard,” said Saini.

“What was going on here was on the grapevine for many years. And if we knew about it, then we have to ask: ‘Where are the regulators? Where are the people who should’ve known better?”

© 2025 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (dcr)

We were open a couple of hours this afternoon, but folks decided sane and safe was a better option - can't say I blame them. In any case we will be back normal hours on Wednesday.

Office hours this week at Mount Airy Chiropractic Center:
Monday 9-noon, 3-7pm
Thursday 4-8pm
Friday 9-noon, 3-7pm
Saturday 9-1pm

Have a great, peaceful, fulfilling holiday!

Happy Thanksgiving! We will be closed on Thursday, but open 9-noon and 2-6pm Friday, and 9am - 1pm Saturday - in case you had an issue moving the turkey, setting up your tree stand...