What are common traits of a health con man?

[Daughter]

Does anyone know of a list of traits that can help a person spot a health-care fraud?

I've been posting in another thread about a "healer" who has sucked in an aunt and uncle (they're beyond help) and my elderly mother with dementia.

Beyond the usual stuff, that he removes space aliens and taps around to cure broken organs, I'm looking for a list that might include things like speaking softly and quickly so you can't understand what's being said, etc.

I'm trying to transcribe a recording I made and geez, I'm clear as a bell, but he's next to impossible to understand. (And was always hard to understand in person as well.)

 

[Daylightstar]

...
I'm trying to transcribe a recording I made and geez, I'm clear as a bell, but he's next to impossible to understand. (And was always hard to understand in person as well.)

Are you transcribing from a digital file? You might want to use a program like audacity, with which you can permanently or temporarily enhance (including slow down or accelerate speech) the sections where the creep opens his gap.

For your question I do not have an immediate answer.

 

[PixyMisa]

If there isn't a long list of side-effects and warnings, it's a scam.

 

[Stomatopoda]

One True Cause
One True Cure
appeal to nature
appeal to popularity
appeal to authority
appeal to antiquity
appeal to emotion
"holistic" "synergy" "balance" "life energy"
aversion to answering questions calmly
confusing correlation with causation
using sciencey words like "quantum" and "ions" without understanding what they mean
making claims about discoveries that would merit a Nobel Prize if true
"Big Pharma" and other conspiracy/Brave Maverick gambits
"Western"/"Eastern"

 

[Daughter]

Are you transcribing from a digital file? You might want to use a program like audacity, with which you can permanently or temporarily enhance (including slow down or accelerate speech) the sections where the creep opens his gap.

For your question I do not have an immediate answer.

I did try out audacity and some other programs, but the guy talks so fast and weird. (Not foreign, just talks like a flim flam man).

I probably got three percent of 15 minutes worth of recording. (You could hear me just fine, and my purse with the recorder was equal distance to us both because he was laying hands) You can't understand most of what he says in person either. Plus, there was an issue with privacy, if I tell you, you'll laugh. The top of the room was open, like the ceiling was 10 feet high, and the walls 9 feet. So you could actually, on this recording, hear the conversations in the waiting room (loud buggers) better than you could hear this freak.

Something I apparently had forgotten, in all the excitement about Djinn and something about illusions and six layers of something:

I HAD 42,000 LIZARDS ON ME.

He said something about reptilian energy (rofl), and I said "You mean like reptiles or what?" And then he said I had those lizards on me.

LIZARDS. And I didn't feel a thing. This guy had no clue I was mocking him through the whole thing.

 

[Daughter]

972 space aliens
42,000 lizards
One Djinn
Six layers of illusion

I feel a musical coming on...this may be bigger than the Book of Mormon.

 

[mutile]

If they call themselves healers.

 

[Daughter]

One True Cause
One True Cure
appeal to nature
appeal to popularity
appeal to authority
appeal to antiquity
appeal to emotion
"holistic" "synergy" "balance" "life energy"
aversion to answering questions calmly
confusing correlation with causation
using sciencey words like "quantum" and "ions" without understanding what they mean
making claims about discoveries that would merit a Nobel Prize if true
"Big Pharma" and other conspiracy/Brave Maverick gambits
"Western"/"Eastern"

Good list, btw.

 

[Wowbagger]

http://quackwatch.org/ has pages full of this sort of stuff. Check it out!

 

[Dr. Imago]

Does anyone know of a list of traits that can help a person spot a health-care fraud?

I've been posting in another thread about a "healer" who has sucked in an aunt and uncle (they're beyond help) and my elderly mother with dementia.

Beyond the usual stuff, that he removes space aliens and taps around to cure broken organs, I'm looking for a list that might include things like speaking softly and quickly so you can't understand what's being said, etc.

I'm trying to transcribe a recording I made and geez, I'm clear as a bell, but he's next to impossible to understand. (And was always hard to understand in person as well.)

In addition to the list of logical fallacies provided by Stomatopoda, here are some other "traits" of these types of practitioners...

Narcissism
Lack of attention to detail
Failure to follow-up (i.e., on previously reported medical/problems complaints)
Blame-shifting
Misinterpretation
Obfuscation
Down-playing
Inattentiveness/Ignoring
Cutting-off/Interrupting
Subject changing/Misdirection

Let's face it, this is a person who would never have been able to hack it in real medical school. We have a simple, almost cliche saying in medicine about people who believe they can successfully practice beyond their level of skill, training, or outside of their specialty: "they don't know what they don't know." That makes them dangerous. When I'm uncertain about something, I call a consultant. I don't vamp. The latter is how people get killed.

Based on what you're telling me, this guy is dangerous. And, trust me when I tell you that, if he attempted to practice this way out our hospital (not that he'd ever get privileges in the first place), he'd be kicked off the medical staff in about 5 minutes.

~Dr. Imago
(Double board-certified in, yes, "real" medicine)

 

[Mojo]

One True Cause
One True Cure
appeal to nature
appeal to popularity
appeal to authority
appeal to antiquity
appeal to emotion
"holistic" "synergy" "balance" "life energy"
aversion to answering questions calmly
confusing correlation with causation
using sciencey words like "quantum" and "ions" without understanding what they mean
making claims about discoveries that would merit a Nobel Prize if true
"Big Pharma" and other conspiracy/Brave Maverick gambits
"Western"/"Eastern"

"Allopathy"

 

[Tatyana]

Holy crap, how do people believe this sort of rubbish in this day and age?

 

[Brown]

An acquaintance mentioned that a specialist prescribed exorcism. This set off "quack alert" alarm bells with everyone ... except the acquaintance (who had been told--by the specialist, of course--that exorcism is becoming "mainstream").

 

[Aepervius]

Does anyone know of a list of traits that can help a person spot a health-care fraud?

If he makes any promise in a positive way, for anything beyond simple cold, they are con man. All doctor I have known make no such promise, they always add a lot of qualification ("you'll heal from your cold in 2 weeks time if your immune system is not compromised"). Con men OTOH promise you all sort of return back to health without qualification if you use properly their herb/homeopathic remedy/magnets/whatnot.

 

[Aepervius]

One True Cause
One True Cure
appeal to nature
appeal to popularity
appeal to authority
appeal to antiquity
appeal to emotion
"holistic" "synergy" "balance" "life energy"
aversion to answering questions calmly
confusing correlation with causation
using sciencey words like "quantum" and "ions" without understanding what they mean
making claims about discoveries that would merit a Nobel Prize if true
"Big Pharma" and other conspiracy/Brave Maverick gambits
"Western"/"Eastern"

That is a very nice list .

 

[Weak Kitten]

Telling you to stop seeing other doctors/telling you not to get a second opinion.

Even a science based doctor who tries to get you to not get a second opinion is doing their patients a HUGE disservice and you should switch doctors immediately. REAL doctors recognize that the human body is incredibly complex and that they cannot be experts on all aspects of it. This is why there are specialists!

 

[Daylightstar]

... but the guy talks so fast and weird. (Not foreign, just talks like a flim flam man).
...

Perhaps the freak is quite aware that by uttering like that it is more difficult to refer explicitly to the uttering part of his act.

 

[WhatRoughBeast]

An acquaintance mentioned that a specialist prescribed exorcism. This set off "quack alert" alarm bells with everyone ... except the acquaintance (who had been told--by the specialist, of course--that exorcism is becoming "mainstream").

Potentially (and I do mean potentially) not a problem.

Psychological cure for a psychological condition.

If they believe they are possessed, and that a priest has the power to expel the demon(s), and a priest does an exorcism....

 

[CapelDodger]

Does anyone know of a list of traits that can help a person spot a health-care fraud?

Do you mean techniques? I'm sure there are many, but you need to ask somebody with an MBA for details . It's all the same thing really. Talk quickly, eloquently and confidently, get the body-language right, use positive words and phrases, denigrate outsiders but not too much (you want people to come away enthused about you more than enraged at "the others"). Never forget personal hygiene. That would be the bare bones of it, I think.

 

[ElMondoHummus]

Yes, Wowbagger's right. Quackwatch has some stuff specifically on that:

• Ten Ways to Avoid Being Quacked
• How to Spot a "Quacky" Web Site
• Fifteen Ways to Spot An Internet Bandit
• Signs of a Quack Device

I know the last two links don't seem to address your question, but honestly, when read flexibly they can be applied.

Also: This applies less to the task of sifting through health care claims than it does to just critical thinking about the topic, but Sagan's Baloney Detection kit is useful in helping you get your mind trained to handle medical claims critically. Sure, some of what's there is more about general research ("Wherever possible there must be independent confirmation of the facts", "Encourage substantive debate on the evidence by knowledgeable proponents of all points of view", "Arguments from authority carry little weight (in science there are no "authorities")", "Spin more than one hypothesis - don't simply run with the first idea that caught your fancy"), but it's not meant to be followed like a procedure. Rather, it's meant to condition yourself to thinking clearly and critically about what you hear and read.

That's a decent start right there.