Glitzy Weight Loss Surgery website connected to NON medical corporate backer
A new website, picturing several glitzy testimonials and singing the praises of Weight Loss Surgery was found at www. compasswls. com. Although this site has been removed, there are many websites like it, still up and still very misleading about weight loss surgery. Following is my research on the compass wls site which probably has a similar history as many other sites, still up.
Research:
This site appears to promise a one step insurance approval of bariatric surgery
making things all the easier for eager patients seeking the elusive American
dream of "never too rich, never too thin".
A photo on the home page of the site, pictures several formerly large ladies who
have now apparently all trimmed down. One interesting tidbit I first noticed is
the largest lady is the most forward in the before photo (making her appear
larger than life) but in the after photo, she's mostly hidden behind a plant (a
trick familiar to all persons of size which works well for hiding some of the
bodily abundance in photographs)
Call me skeptic if you will but somehow, knowing what I do about the
ineffectiveness and risk of most available WLS procedures (especially the VBG
which at least one of the featured surgeons advocates - Dr Hall), I tended to
wonder if this site had some corporate support behind it and was not, as it
appeared, merely a 'help site' for poor ladies of size, yearning to become
"slender".
I decided to trace the money trail which I knew there WAS one when I found on
compasswls.com, a "fee referral form", i.e. a form you can fill out to get
reimbursed when you refer a patient to this group.
Doing some detective work (and it wasn't real easy to trace but one of my good
friends, a clever lady Marlow - referring to the books by Raymond Chandler in
case you are not a detective novel buff - had taught me some tricks), I did
trace the corporation backing and it was a bit of a mind blower:
www.compasswls.com is owned by Community Health Services of Tennessee which
calls itself:
>>>>the largest non-urban provider of general hospital
healthcare services in the United States in terms of number of acute care
facilities and the second largest in terms of revenues.<<<<<
And recently announced it's second quarter
profits which were not um... small:
>>>>Community Health Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CYH) today
announced strong financial and operating results for the second quarter and six
months ended June 30, 2002.
Net operating revenues for the second quarter ended June 30, 2002, totaled
$530.6 million, a 32.3% increase compared with $400.9 million for the same
period last year.<<<<<
http://www.chs.net/about.chs/index.htm
Community Health Systems was organized in
1985 and it announced that:
>>>>> In 1996, our stock was purchased by Affiliates of
Forstmann Little & Co.<<<<<<
Tracing Forstmann & Little - keep in mind
this is the OWNER of Community Health Systems and thus the owner of
www.compasswls.com - we get some more surprises, not all of them nice.
They are an investment company about which Hoovers (
www.hoovers.com ) writes:
>>>>>Don't let the "Little" fool you: buyout
firm Forstmann Little & Co. has been home to some big names. The firm, which
specializes in telecommunications, technology, education, and health care
investments, counts among its former advisory board members Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, and George Shultz and Henry
Kissinger. Since its founding in 1978, Forstmann Little has invested more than
$10 billion in about 30 companies. It is led by the surviving founding group
member, Ted Forstmann; Nicholas Forstmann died in 2001, and William Little died
in 2000. Connecticut is suing Forstmann Little & Co. to recover state retirement
money it claims the firm invested recklessly.<<<<<<
http://www.hoovers.com/co/capsule/5/0,2163,42495,00.html
Additionally, it seems that Forstmann
hired one of Ex President Clinton's cronies to run it in 1999 and this man,
Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles evidentally is claimed to have
lost a lot of bucks in investing in a worldwide internet firm called "XO
Communications". A republican website happily reprinted:
>>>>Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Erskine Bowles
doesn’t want voters to know about his personal involvement in making risky
investment decisions after being hired to “operate” the investment firm
Forstmann Little – which led to the loss of $1.5 billion “almost overnight” for
investors and even millions of a state’s pension fund which is now suing the
firm. (New York Times, 2/24/02)<<<<<
Forstmann owns a nationwide radio network
called Citadel communications:
( www.citadel.com or
www.citadelradio.com )
and has interests in Gulfsteam Aerospace
(makes corporation jets), General Instrument and Ziff-Davis Publishing.
Since the home page of
www.forstmannlittle.com has been replaced with a blank HTML page, we cannot see
without digging through non internet records, what the names of the other of the
30 companies, this investment firm has interests in, but they obviously have
found out that WLS is the money band wagon to jump on.
Doesn't it give you a warm fuzzy feeling (NOT) knowing that such a large
investment corporation as Forstmann & Little is looking to re-coup their billion
dollar losses in the internet provider world, by entering a WLS venture...
Sue
PS: I had been to the Citadel radio site previously - they featured a while ago,
a program advocating Weight Loss Surgery (how surprising!) :)
return the WLS info center