Excerpted from January 4 E-Bulletin:

In November I promised to answer readers' questions about how I find the information that I report to you. Well, after a little delay due to L4-L5 disc issues, I am going to "tell all" as promised.

1. A great many of the items I get are from my clients' EMTALA problems that I am asked to come in and fix. I clean up the information so that it is not readily identifiable and share it with you.
2. I request Freedom of Information records from the Feds on citations -- anyone can do this, but it can be very expensive, and the Feds are very slow to release the information. As an example, a request I made last March still has not been answered, although it has been acknowledged.
3. I get questions and tips from my readers that alert me to problems or resources. As an example, when I answered a question for a reader, they shared the CMS letter with me in return.
4. I have a lot of website resources -- most of these are on the links posted on the medlaw.com website for your reference.
5. I use a tool to speed up my website visits. This tool opens all of my regular resource sites with one click of the mouse. I set up the sites I want to check daily on one button, weekly on another, and monthly on a third. This helps my failing memory a lot. This is a tool I can share with you without any cost and it is available through a link via my website at www.medlaw.com/clickstart.zip.
6. What is my real secret tool? The one tool that I stumbled on that is a LIFESAVER for me is a commercial program called "Search Automator" which drills down to exactly what I need from many different search engines in seconds. It is not that you cannot find this information without this tool, because your CAN. It is simply a major time saver, which is why I like it, plus it is really pretty cheap. Information on this commercial product is available via a forwarding link from my site at www.medlaw.com/search/.