Why I was not satisfied with Ossur's letter....
Laurie Soldinger
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Title:
Why I was not satisfied with Ossur's letter....
Creator:
Laurie Soldinger
Text:
Let me start by saying that I read Mr. Wertz' letter several times and truly
attempted to give Ossur the benefit of the doubt and a chance to explain their
side of the arguement.
Well, I already felt a negative tone in Paragraphs 1 & 3 which basically read
like a commercial to me by recommending that anyone interested in learning
more should call or visit online. But, hey, since Ossur has become such experts
at advertising, I guess they like to throw in a plug wherever they can, even
in the middle of an open letter defending the negative press their program has
received.
They then make the claim that there is no profit made to them by the
membership fees, and that every dime goes straight back into advertising and promoting
these facilities. They even claim to add their own money in where needed (how
generous of them). Considering that they have made close to $1 MILLION so
far on membership fees alone from the 640 facilities that have joined (not at
all including all the monies that they make from the sales quotas these
facilites have to meet), I certainly hope, for the sake of the OAFs that they will
each receive a copy of the quarterly and yearly financial reports proving that
they spent a million bucks on some lectures, brochures and website listings.
But again, since Ossur's specialty has moved from the product development field
and they've now become a professional advertising firm, I'm sure they probably
have already thought of that. While no one has ever doubted the integrity of
the Ossur product, since when have they ever proved themselved to be the
professional marketing and advertising gurus they are now claiming to be? Let's
remember their claim is it is not the Ossur product they are using the money to
promote, it is the actual facility that sells their product. That seems like a
fine line to separate in Ossur's eyes.
But the point in the letter where I had to stop and realize the load of
crap that was being fed to my very open mind, was where Mr. Wertz states
Should facilities choose not to participate in the network but continue to purchase
Ossur products, Ossur will of course continue to provide meaningful support
to those customers in their marketing and promotional efforts. We appreciate
the ongoing relationship with all of our customers, and although we believe
that the network will be of value to facilities that carry Ossur products, we
respect the decisions of those practitioners
who decide not to participate. If this is true, then why have we heard
several reports of patients being told to find other facilities on the list, even
though their current practitioner uses Ossur products? We even heard from a
gentleman who personally called acting as an amputee who was concerned that his
practitioner (who has been using Ossur products and has been doing a great
job for him so far) was not on the list, and was specifically recommended to
consider trying someone new who is on the list. So perhaps Mr. Wertz has not
shared his desire to continue to provide meaningful support to those customers
in their marketing and promotional efforts to his customer service department
who takes these calls, but it certainly does not sound like promotional
support to tell our customers to pick someone else from the list because we chose
not to pay the ransom.
The rest of the letter was basically spent bragging about all of the
generosity they have shown to future prosthetists who are still in their studies, who
they will one day stab in the back and compete against if they too don't pay
their ransom. And making claims that they are within the letter of the law
regarding HIPAA requirements, when they have previously stated that HIPAA
regulations do not apply to them anyway. And making claims that they do not use our
product warranty information to illegally solicit amputee business, but they
use mailing lists from website traffic, tradeshow and conference sign-ups, and
incoming phone calls. I would be interested to see how many amputees are on
that mailing list, as I find it hard to believe that they have all of this
information about our patients from warranty & registration cards at their
fingertips, but they are claiming to only solicit those patients that have personally
contacted them for more information. I believe that as much as I believe Bill
Clinton didn't inhale.
Sorry, Ossur, but you didn't satisfy my doubts about your program, in fact,
you only raised more. My only question is, how many customers would you have
to lose before you would rethink your program and the way it seeks to divert
business away from existing customers that chose not to participate in your
program? I know of many facilites that make WAY MORE than the minimum quota in
sales required by the OAF program, that will never send another dime your way
because they realize they are paying their competition.
Laurie Soldinger
attempted to give Ossur the benefit of the doubt and a chance to explain their
side of the arguement.
Well, I already felt a negative tone in Paragraphs 1 & 3 which basically read
like a commercial to me by recommending that anyone interested in learning
more should call or visit online. But, hey, since Ossur has become such experts
at advertising, I guess they like to throw in a plug wherever they can, even
in the middle of an open letter defending the negative press their program has
received.
They then make the claim that there is no profit made to them by the
membership fees, and that every dime goes straight back into advertising and promoting
these facilities. They even claim to add their own money in where needed (how
generous of them). Considering that they have made close to $1 MILLION so
far on membership fees alone from the 640 facilities that have joined (not at
all including all the monies that they make from the sales quotas these
facilites have to meet), I certainly hope, for the sake of the OAFs that they will
each receive a copy of the quarterly and yearly financial reports proving that
they spent a million bucks on some lectures, brochures and website listings.
But again, since Ossur's specialty has moved from the product development field
and they've now become a professional advertising firm, I'm sure they probably
have already thought of that. While no one has ever doubted the integrity of
the Ossur product, since when have they ever proved themselved to be the
professional marketing and advertising gurus they are now claiming to be? Let's
remember their claim is it is not the Ossur product they are using the money to
promote, it is the actual facility that sells their product. That seems like a
fine line to separate in Ossur's eyes.
But the point in the letter where I had to stop and realize the load of
crap that was being fed to my very open mind, was where Mr. Wertz states
Should facilities choose not to participate in the network but continue to purchase
Ossur products, Ossur will of course continue to provide meaningful support
to those customers in their marketing and promotional efforts. We appreciate
the ongoing relationship with all of our customers, and although we believe
that the network will be of value to facilities that carry Ossur products, we
respect the decisions of those practitioners
who decide not to participate. If this is true, then why have we heard
several reports of patients being told to find other facilities on the list, even
though their current practitioner uses Ossur products? We even heard from a
gentleman who personally called acting as an amputee who was concerned that his
practitioner (who has been using Ossur products and has been doing a great
job for him so far) was not on the list, and was specifically recommended to
consider trying someone new who is on the list. So perhaps Mr. Wertz has not
shared his desire to continue to provide meaningful support to those customers
in their marketing and promotional efforts to his customer service department
who takes these calls, but it certainly does not sound like promotional
support to tell our customers to pick someone else from the list because we chose
not to pay the ransom.
The rest of the letter was basically spent bragging about all of the
generosity they have shown to future prosthetists who are still in their studies, who
they will one day stab in the back and compete against if they too don't pay
their ransom. And making claims that they are within the letter of the law
regarding HIPAA requirements, when they have previously stated that HIPAA
regulations do not apply to them anyway. And making claims that they do not use our
product warranty information to illegally solicit amputee business, but they
use mailing lists from website traffic, tradeshow and conference sign-ups, and
incoming phone calls. I would be interested to see how many amputees are on
that mailing list, as I find it hard to believe that they have all of this
information about our patients from warranty & registration cards at their
fingertips, but they are claiming to only solicit those patients that have personally
contacted them for more information. I believe that as much as I believe Bill
Clinton didn't inhale.
Sorry, Ossur, but you didn't satisfy my doubts about your program, in fact,
you only raised more. My only question is, how many customers would you have
to lose before you would rethink your program and the way it seeks to divert
business away from existing customers that chose not to participate in your
program? I know of many facilites that make WAY MORE than the minimum quota in
sales required by the OAF program, that will never send another dime your way
because they realize they are paying their competition.
Laurie Soldinger
Citation
Laurie Soldinger, “Why I was not satisfied with Ossur's letter....,” Digital Resource Foundation for Orthotics and Prosthetics, accessed November 2, 2024, https://library.drfop.org/items/show/221437.
