I don’t think you can consider yourself American if you haven’t come up with a get-rich-quick-scheme, or at least dreamed of the outcome of one.

This country is all about achieving “the good life”. Which I think loosely translates into “a large disposable income and a lot of free time to indulge in it”. What better way to achieve this dream then with little effort and a minimal amount of investment?

Well, for the majority of us, we will never know what it feels like to be a wealthy heir, win the lottery, or be selected as Mark Cuban’s benefactor.

But still, even for the rest of us, we are just one great idea away from making it, right?

I had my epiphany about a month ago. It was my shot at all those millions of dollars in exchange for little time, investment and knowledge. Now I didn’t jump the gun and start salivating at the epicurean lifestyle that surely awaited me. I didn’t run out and make lavish purchases based on future earnings (my credit card only has a $2,000 limit as a precaution against such mood swings).

That’s right, I kept it together. Even though I had the winning lottery ticket in the Mark Thomton’s Inner Thoughts Sweepstakes, there were still a few minor details that needed to be ironed out.

Mainly, I had to see if this scheme would actually work.

Allow me to invite you into the inner workings of my mind. It can be a slow-paced environment at times, but occasionally, we rev things up and it gets cooking.

Recently, I was covering a health care seminar when I sprung upon my idea.

A group of panelists were adamant that as the health care industry is changing, socialized medicine will not be the answer. In fact, it would probably be the opposite and consumerism/capitalism would play a more prominent role.

This will be evident in the rise of HSAs and HRAs in the near future, where health care users become consumers in charge of an allotted amount money. The panelist agreed that in this environment consumers will have to be savvy about the health care industry and have proper knowledge of physicians, hospitals and procedures.

The idea of an all-encompassing rating system based on proficiency and price of doctors and hospitals was thrown around, as a way for consumers to spend their money wisely and budget for the kind of care that they can afford.

That’s when it hit me. Where better to place this forum than on the Internet? It can be available to everyone and allow for quick updates and a smooth flow of information. I envisioned a Web site that could be broken down by geographical area, doctor specialty, procedure, cost and customer (I mean patient) feed back. Need to have knee surgery? Just put in your price range, location and desired “doctor rating” and see if it comes up. You may get lucky.

While it would be a handy tool for consumers, just think of the advertising possibilities. Doctor Johnson in Charleston, S.C. has an extremely high success rate and high customer satisfaction for hip replacements. He might want to take up an ad to tout this on the site. Entire healthcare facilities could use it as an avenue for advertisement.

Of course, I didn’t want to actually put in the effort and labor to really develop the site. The trick would be to register a great, obvious domain name, let the demand grow, and then unload it based on its market potential. You see the thought process only took a few minutes and the work would be minimal. Now that’s maximizing your dollar.

Now for the right domain name…Let’s go with the obvious, ratemydoctor.com. Whoops, looks like someone beat me to the punch. Never mind, I’ve got a few more tricks up my sleeve. How about rateyourdoctor.com? Well…it seems someone got to that one first too (AND it’s for sale to boot). Now we are losing some steam, but there probably has to be something else somewhat similar.

Doctoratings.com? No dice.

Healthgrades.com? Nope.

Ratemds.com? Love this one, but once again, sorry, out of luck.

It seems that I did not have a corner on the market.

Even if I was able to come up with another domain name, it seems like the most obvious ones had already been taken. Realistically, any site name could work if the effort was put into it, but I was banking on the name for resale value. I wanted the easy money. Alas, my dreams seemed shattered.

I guess I should have known.

It is safe to say that most stories of immense fortunes have a lot of hard work behind them. I know it is cliché, but the only real way to ensure success is through hard work. That’s a lot tougher to practice than it is to preach, but those who have come across that “one great idea” and then put their blood, sweat and tears into it, often come away with the financial reward as well.

That may not always be the case, but even if the bank account doesn’t end up looking like Warren Buffet’s, the work put into something will yield benefits, even if it is only on a personal level. You will be able to look in the mirror and at least know that you did your best.

And what’s wrong with that? I don’t think you can cash in on those millions in the afterlife anyway.