We have all heard stories about hospitals charging thousands of dollars for procedures that any reasonable person would assume would have been less than twenty dollars. For years most have been buffered from these excesses by the insurance companies but today with our five to ten thousand-dollar deductibles these excesses are something we all must deal with directly. An assumption that some make is that doctors are complicit in this process to boost their bottom line or because they work for these large corporate entities they are powerless to stop these abuses.These are the kind of issues that will be addressed by this month's speaker.

With this months speaker, we not only have an individual that has been caught up in this process as the parent of a patient but he is a doctor himself. Thomas Forte, MD has been a doctor for over 30 years during which time he has seen many private practices swallowed up by the large health care corporations. He and several of his colleagues made a conscious effort not to give into the pressures from these healthcare organizations because he understood what this would mean to his patients. On the other side of the equation, Dr. Forte had a son that required a heart transplant. Bottom line is Dr. Forte faced everyone's worst nightmare, working with the medical establishment and the insurance companies in a complex life or death situation.