Unless one has been a patient, a family member or sympathetic medical practitioner, there is no way for the uninitiated to understand what has been happening to patients served by a mismanaged, unfriendly, healthcare system whose primary focus has shifted from the wellbeing of patients to that of the medical staff, the administration, and the bottom line. From the moment patients enter the system, they lose our identity and the focus shifts to the disease they are carrying. I was such a patient. It's time to tell the true story. My name is Susan Wright. I am a licensed therapist, author and social activist, that is, until the day I became a patient and found myself in the hospital emergency room of my healthcare insurance plan. Like most patients, I was seeking a safe and welcoming place where I could discover what was wrong and what could be done about it. Expecting to be greeted with understanding and concern, I found myself trapped on an impersonal managed care medical assembly line. No one seemed to care about me, their interest was solely focused on my disease. Since I hadn't been ill for over 25 years, I knew something radical had occurred during my absence. The traditional close ties between the patient, doctors and the community had been replaced. Physicians were now salaried employees. Primary care the gateway to the system. On enrollment, each patient was assigned a caregiver who was responsible for coordinating every aspect of medical care. Since each caregiver often carried a caseload of 2,000 patients, there was no time to spend time listening to their problems. Healthcare had become a business where patients were regarded as a kind of corporate product i.e., machines with faulty parts. Once assigned a caregiver, I lost control of my body. I was assigned to doctors I didn't know, who misdiagnosed me, ordered unnecessary procedures, forgot or delayed giving me the results or answering my calls. I existed, like other patients, on automatic pilot; dependent, fearful and disengaged. I lost my identity. Then one day I asked myself what I would do if someone came to me with this problem. I was a therapist with the skills to heal others, why not myself? My mystery disease was getting worse. It had to take matters into my own hands in time to save my life. I ceased being a victim, woke from my coma, resumed being the observer/healer/advocate I had been before entering the system, and began looking for solutions. The journey is what this book is all about.