RMAP Educational Fee

On the RMAP website it was discussed what the $500 educational fee is actually for. I posted a response to that but was censored by the RMAP moderator (most likely Carly). I guess they don't like having it broken down so people will actually know. Since I think we all have a right to know about this fee, I'm breaking it down here.

1. Phone Support. Ummmm.. no. All doctor offices offer the same basic phone support that RMAP does and they don't charge for it.
2. Monthly Newsletter. Supposedly your educational fee pays for a 2 year subscription. How do you get that? They don't mail it out to you. You get it with your picture CD which you get just after surgery (and then you get past newsletters) and at your year mark. That isn't 2 years in my book.
3. The binder. Okay, while this does include information that I used for about the first 6 weeks to 3 months after surgery and it did answer some of my questions prior to surgery, it isn't worth more than maybe $30.
4. The little card to put in your wallet to let people know you're a gastric bypass patient. Give me a break. What did this cost? $2.50?
5. Online newsletters? Okay, well first off you should have the choice whether you are being charged for a newsletter. A forced subscription? Hmmm. Second, the monetary value of this isn't very high.
6. The support website. Give me a break. RMAP has to have a website otherwise they wouldn't be a center of excellence and their image would be poor. To be someone you have to have a website. By having a support portion for their patients, they get us to give the website hits which gives it a higher status with search engines. All in all, we help make the website more visible which makes them money. So that's a wash. Plus the website wasn't even moderated until recently and the moderation has honestly made the quality of the conversational piece go downhill.

Anyway, we could continue but let me get to my point. What is the $500 educational fee for? It's for the educational portion you get prior to surgery and the educational portion you get after surgery. Any claims that it's for anything else is utter crap. So is the $500 educational fee worthwhile? Yes, if you use it. RMAP requires that their patients are educated prior to the surgery. So we all use that portion of the fee. And it's up to you whether you use the support after surgery (of course your location and schedule plays a lot in that decision). If you do, then you get value from the $500 educational fee. If you don't, not so much.

RMAP requires the $500 educational fee because their experience shows that the patients who participate in this type of support have better success. I have no problem with them requiring it. My only issue here is that they try to make it sound like you're getting more than you really are. Many practices don't require the educational support piece so they don't charge you. Others offer the educational support piece but charge more. I didn't have a problem with the $500 educational fee when I paid it and I still don't. Which I think if the message base moderator would have actually read the entirety of my post, she would have noticed that I agree with the fee and wasn't arguing against it. Of course, since I'm sure the moderator was Carly, I'm sure it was deleted because of my story about Dr. Smith, her and my 18 month mark (that's included here in my blog (see below)).