Mediswipe Is Not About Patient Safety

[tooldini]

LOL good reading for sure

[imiubu]

The certification centers they are boasting about really aren't all that revolutionary.  You fill out an online form which in turn populates the application with your name, dob, etc.  Nice thing to do that we have been playing with recently, but basic word processing.  The electronic medical record in the cloud?  I started using PowerMed in 2000, electronic medical records are nice and searchable, they are a useful tool for research and data analysis.  They are free on line.  If you could electronically file the application and get a card in a week (assuming the state would do it's part and incorporate physician eligibility and criminal background checking for caregivers), then you have my attention.

 

Caregiver management services?  Would you guys pay 5% to be able to run credit cards and track your 5 patients?

 

Running a large scale dispensary would be a great application for this technology, especially if the banks wont offer you credit card services.  Perhaps this is the market they should go for rather than sugar coating it as some sort of solution to certifications or caregiver services.

 

Dr. Bob

 

The fact that MediSwipe is already installing itself in MI leads me to believe that; if there is a big $$ corporate entity moving in... that they have due

reason to believe they will indeed have a market. IMO, that market is the proposed 'PC's', therefor this company is dangerous.

Any CC and or Cert Center that feels this kind of 'technology' is necessary are , again imo, putting those they are trying to protect and serve

into grave danger.  I have no reason what so ever to need the services MediSwipe provides. 

 

I have my name on 1 list too many already.

 

What happened to good ole cash transactions ?

[+washtenaut]

They are most certainly here for future legislative developments.  Their business model doesn't make sense here unless the dispensaries come back. 

 

They just had to put out some fake fluff story that was bought by the under-educated.  Most here know there is no need for their service without the dispensaries.  That is why so many here say they currently have no need for this service. 

 

As we know though, things change.

[+Malamute]

I still don't see the need for them.  Just put in an ATM machine and be done with it. :-)

[Roman]

MEDISWIPE: The Newest Public Nuisance For Michigan's Medical Marijuana Industry?

 

A fried of mine called me yesterday to ask me if I had seen the article in the business section of the local paper about a company that moved it's corporate headquarters from West Palm Beach, Florida to Birmingham, Michigan recently in hopes of capitalizing on the growing medical marijuana industry here. The company, which goes by the name of "MediSwipe" these days is a publicly traded company that is taking a giant leap into the uncharted Michigan medical marijuana scene. It appears at first glance that MediSwipe has a good plan to achieve their lofty goals in Michigan, but further review leads one to conclude that this company doesn't have a clue what they are doing. With reports of a giant building that was leased, along with corporate office spaces in another location, and incredibly high projections for taking market share in the industry in a short amount of time, MediSwipe is making a huge gamble for their investors without much transparency into how they will achieve such heights with their current business model. MediSwipe claims that they will have nothing to do with supplying marijuana, but their actions lead one to believe that they are gearing up to be a giant dispensary. They claim to have promoted caregivers to their board who will facilitate their transfer of marijuana by providing a "virtual office space" as they call it.

Their CEO, Barry Michael Friedman clearly doesn't understand the medical marijuana industry as it applies to patients and caregivers in the state of Michigan. It's very evident to members of the marijuana community that Friedman has no clue what he is even talking about during his conference call on a stock website called, TheWallStreetAnalyst recently. He talks about marijuana patients going to traditional pharmacies to get their medicine, prescriptions for marijuana, and this is a good one... "medible data storage" office. Is this guy serious? First of all, there are no "prescriptions" for marijuana, and marijuana patients don't go down to their local Wallgreens pharmacy to pick up marijuana. This guy must be smoking some good stuff. That fact that he's even talking this way could mean the entire venture will be doomed from the start. Friedman talks openly about his offices providing a medible solution to patients who are seeking marijuana as medicine after the company itself used the recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling on SOM vs. McQueen as a press release to illustrate to their investors how their business plan would differ from the Michigan dispensaries currently being closed down in the state and how MediSwipe's model could be successfully implemented in the state in accordance with strict laws and guidelines for state marijuana compliance.

MediSwipe has failed to share with investors who the doctors are that they will be employing or partnering with. Several doctors have recently been charged in connection with operating fraudulently in the state and several other doctors are being heavily watched for their lack of ethics in providing quality of care and continuation of care within the board of medicine's guidelines for the state. One doctor near Troy, Michigan voluntarily surrendered their license as a result of the pressure from state officials to provide documentation on a patient they saw within the scope of the MMMA. Other doctors are giving away paraphernalia and "free marijuana" vouchers as a gimmick to lure potential marijuana patients into their offices even after it was found in court that physicians should not be operating this way. Most doctors in the state are fearful to provide certifications while possessing a controlled substance license and a federal DEA license to prescribe narcotics since Marijuana is a still classified as a schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act.

So how does MediSwipe guarantee that they can sustain professional relationships with medical marijuana physicians in such a tumultuous environment where the average span of a physician's participation in the industry is frequently less than a year? Better yet, how does MediSwipe figure they will turn a profit where physicians are offering patient licenses for as little as $49? Meanwhile, around the rest of the country, there are talks of states outright legalizing marijuana for recreational use led by Colorado and Washington ending prohibition on marijuana this past election. The legalization in those states destroyed the licensing requirements for marijuana users and resulted in an end to the marijuana licensing/certification businesses. How long does Michigan really have before it's voters decide to legalize marijuana for recreational use? Michigan currently holds the record in two categories for marijuana voting by setting a record for the amount of voters in favor of the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act with a whopping 63.4% approval rate in 2008 and then just recently in Ypsilanti with a 74% voter approved initiative to decriminalize marijuana in the city. And if that isn't enough, MediSwipe plans to open another office in Ann Arbor where marijuana has been decriminalized for over 40 years and was the first city in the United States to implement such an effort way ahead of its time. So are they really trying to get patients licensed or are they encroaching on the turf of dispensaries currently in the area with plans to facilitate  the dispensing of marijuana to patients? This all seems like a wolf in sheep clothes to me.

I talked with one dispensary owner who was recently forced to shut down via a cease and desist letter from a prosecuting attorney to find out what their thoughts were over the weekend and to my surprise they thought the exact same thing. So is MediSwipe actually going to be just another dispensary with a fancy hold and wait strategy? And if so, how does this affect their publicly-traded status with federal prohibitions in place? One thing is for sure, CEO, Barry Michael Friedman is seriously misreading the market in Michigan. The icing on the cake during his conference call was his high level of commitment to implementing a "biometric security" requirement for marijuana patients to adhere to which would require either retinal scanning (eyeball scanning) or fingerprinting to be certified by one of their doctors and use their dispensary-like services. As a medical marijuana patient myself, there is one thing i can tell you about cannabis users... They have been made to feel for too long like criminals and the last thing we want in our state is some slick dealing Wall Street guy who thinks he is just going to jump on the scene here and start fingerprinting everybody for a marijuana card. A close business associate of mine posed another question: What if MediSwipe is in bed with state elected law-makers to amend the MMMA to comply with their proposed standards of requiring retinal scanning and fingerprinting to track patients' use of marijuana, caregivers' transfers, and a ton of other very private pieces of data. If this were the case, what would happen to Michigan's medical marijuana industry? Surely most of the "old-school hippies" like myself would drop out of the program. We all read 1984, and yes we don't like you taking samples of our body in order to tell us we can use something that has been around for 5000+ years and grows from the Earth. So maybe MediSwipe should take note to this rant and pack their bags and turn that ship back around to Florida. They clearly were unsuccessful in their business dealings in California and Colorado, so what's making them foam at the mouth for Michigan's marijuana program?

Further unveiling of MediSwipe's company history reveals some very telling information...

The company's most recent quarterly reports (found here: http://biz.yahoo.com/e/121114/mwip10-q.html) show a grim outlook for the survivability of the company. The company states: "The independent auditors reports on our financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2011 and 2010 includes a "going concern" explanatory paragraph that describes substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern. Management's plans in regard to the factors prompting the explanatory paragraph are discussed below and also in Note 11 to the condensed financial statements filed herein." So basically, if this were the lab report for an ailing patient, then MediSwipe is on life-support with a medically induced coma. The company claims it made only $812.00 ending September 30, 2012. The insider trading report on MediSwipe according to Reuters (found here: http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/companyOfficers?symbol=MWIP.PK&WTmodLOC=C4-Officers-5) shows how executives move money around in the company through stock transfers to key partners and even what appears to be close friends and family. Evidence here (http://www.investorpoint.com/stock/mwip-MediSwipe+Inc%252E/insider/FRIEDMAN%252C+BARRY+MICHAEL/All+Types/) shows the CEO collecting $92,700 from a sale of his stock just last month! If the CEO believed in his company's future mission then why would he sell off over 1Million shares?

MediSwipe, formerly Cannabis Medical Solutions has seen what state lawmakers and policy makers can do to their business model in other states where medical marijuana is legal. They learned very quickly after focusing a lot of their resources on merchant processing (taking credit cards) for California and Colorado dispensaries. When their payment gateways  refused to take credit cards for marijuana for fear of violating interstate drug trafficking laws then MediSwipe found themselves in quite a pickle. Maybe they have learned from this. If MediSwipe does have ties to current legislators in Michigan then it would make sense that their projections for the future of the marijuana industry here would be aligned with their newly proposed business model. Ironically, they have drawn a lot of attention to HB 4271, the proposal by Rep. Mike Callton that was being discussed just days after the state Supreme Court essentially ruled that patient to patient dispensaries are illegal under Michigan's medical marijuana laws, a devastating decision that is forcing almost all of the estimated 75-100 dispensaries currently operating to close.

Apparently there is even more to dig up about MediSwipe's involvement with other organizations in Michigan. There seems to be recent involvement with a compassion club in Taylor, MI which is still operational despite the recent Supreme Court ruling. Michigan Compassion, as it is called is a company posing as a federally registered 501©3 corp, presumably to disguise the operations of the owner's husband who is a licensed caregiver in the state of Michigan. The owner's husband, Amish Parikh was recently promoted to the board of MediSwipe on March 8th: http://www.nasdaq.com/article/mediswipe-inc-announces-technology-and-healthcare-veteran-to-board-of-directors-20130308-00374

We won't be investing in MediSwipe, but we will be investigating their business a lot more over the next few weeks to see what this wolf is up to...
 

[+Malamute]

Wow.... that is pretty ruthless...

 

 Who wrote this? or is it published?

 

 Just wondering.

[Hayduke]

Interesting for sure. Thank you for the post. It really seems Medswipe is a penny stock masquerading as a monied player.

 

Is this freelance journalism? I was wondering who wrote this?

 

And what wolf do you support?

 

Hehe.....

[Roman]

I wrote it. ©opywrite me. Thanks.

[+Malamute]

Are you a zombie pirate by chance?

 

 

Just checking...

[Roman]

It only took a few google searches to uncover most of this, but what really gets under my skin is the "biometric security" talks. We are not criminals!!! If anyone IS, it's half of those derivitave-seeking wall st. crooks.... And what makes these guys any different?

[GregS]

These people are spinning their wheels. They will fail. Investors will get fleeced. They will whine. I will say, "Oh well..."

 

Repeat as necessary.

 

Nice work. When does it go to press?

[Hayduke]

How bout my second question?

 

Who do you favor in the scrum?

 

A2 Guild?

 

NPRA?

[Roman]

I haven't chosen a "side" i guess - if that's the case then I'm on the side of the patient. That's it. No zombie here, but definitely a veteran pirate.

[Roman]

I didn't really intend to publish this for the masses, but if you have any suggestions on where to submit it, then I would be fine with editing it and making it presentable for release.

[GregS]

I haven't chosen a "side" i guess - if that's the case then I'm on the side of the patient. That's it. No zombie here, but definitely a veteran pirate.

 

Aye!

[+Malamute]

I would say i knew all of this stufff,... it is just brutal when put together.

 

And i thought it was a news article.

 

 Nice job on the writing. 

[+Malamute]

I am guessing something similar could be written about those previous groups mentioned.

 

Mediswipe just seems like a real ripe piece of pineapple.  :-)

[GregS]

I am guessing something similar could be written about those previous groups mentioned.

 

Mediswipe just seems like a real ripe piece of pineapple.  :-)

 

Don't you mean to say cheese?

[SFC]

Yea, I assumed it was a really good editorial. My compliments Roman.. 

[Roman]

I'm not anonymous zapatos. I am Roman. That's my name, so hardly anonymous. The piece was written in an hour after a close friend turned me onto the conference call this mediswipe ceo had on some stock website. We need to protect patients in this industry. Those with earnest intent to do that will survive and I believe that the ones who are in it for a quick buck will naturally be WEEDED OUT.

 

Love is the law. Love under will.

[Hayduke]

Yeah, I am betting the Washtenaw Cty dispensary people are the parties behind this attack. As the so called unsigned piece says, the a2 people think Medswipe encroaches on their "turf".....

 

I do not like Medswipe at all, the article sums up my viewpoint.

 

But someone with five posts has no cred until their identity is known.

[Roman]

I'm not a dispensary owner or affiliated with one at all. I am not even a member of a dispensary. No need. And again, the piece has been signed. By Me. I have all the credibility and more to speak on this and several other topics as they relate to medical marijuana. I guess if I sat on here one day and commented on what everyone else thought too then I could aspire to have 400 posts and be a credible contributor like you. No hard feelings.

[Dr. Bob]

So Roman, do you know who Hayduke is?  His credentials are known (and not by the number of his posts) and he is a respected voice in here.  Zap is the administrator here with a strong rep in the community as well.  They both seem to have an interest in getting to know you.  Not to mention the fact when an admin asks you to introduce yourself, you really should.

 

Nice article by the way, however rather than get snippy with Hay, perhaps you should just answer his question and introduce yourself and give a little background. Not questioning your contributions, but would like to learn a bit more about where they are coming from.  That seems to be a common sentiment after your well written post.

 

Dr. Bob

Edited March 24, 2013 by Dr. Bob

[Roman]

Oh, no disrespect to anyone. I know a lot can be read-into via text.

 

I understand you want to get to know me a little more, and chances are you have already met me or seen me somewhere as part of the mmj community. If you're looking for more information about me then all you have to do is ask. I am a patient and a caregiver in the state for 3 years now and prior to this i was a patient in another state for 2 years. I have always been an advocate for marijuana to be used as a medicine and the right that people have to use it that way. I am a representative for patients and an advocate for anyone who finds relief using this wonderful medicine.

[Hayduke]

I am asking...