Let the Games Begin

Let the Games Begin

James Addams

8/14/2003

Back to the Ossur debate, for those of you waiting for the smoking gun to
prove that Ossur is and will be attempting to take your patients away from
you, well here it is.

Ossur has just sent out invitations to patients to attend an Amputee
Mobility and Performance Clinic 2003. These clinics are being held in
Nashua, Chicago, San Diego and Kansas City. These free one day clinics are
being taught by Robert Gailey and Kurt Collier.

There are three aspects of the brochure that I find extremely distressing:

First, one of the claims made in the brochure, and this is a direct copy of
the text. �Prosthetic Components-make the right Choice. Lean about design
and functional difference among available components and learn how these
options may benefit you.�

Second, this brochure was brought to me by one of my patients who tells me
he has NEVER contacted Flex Foot or Ossur. In fact he wanted to know why he
was receiving this junk mail from Ossur and concluded that I must have sold
his name to Ossur. The only way Ossur could have accessed this patient�s
address is from the warrantee card, there is no other explanation.

Third, Kurt Collier, a previous employee of Ossur and one of the presenters
for the seminar, is promoted as being the current Chairman of the Amputee
Coalition of America. Looks like Ossur is using their money to purchase
all the patient contacts and influence they can in our industry.

Are you ready to have an Ossur representative and Chairman of the ACA
evaluate your patient at these seminars and then tell them what is wrong
with the prosthesis you made and then recommend that they be fit with an
Ossur product from an Ossur facility?

What Ossur is doing is dead wrong, it is bad for patient care, it is bad for
our industry and it is bad for our reputation. If you are still supporting
Ossur by using their products, stop and take a good long look at Ossur
business practices, they are about pushing Ossur product and pushing Ossur
sales, they do not appear to care about patients or the industry as a whole.

Call Ossur and ask for a copy of the brochure so you can see for yourself,
or better yet, just ask one of your patients, I am sure they will recieve a
brochure very soon from Ossur.

James Addams
Prosthetist

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