Re: Canadian doctors coming to the US

From: Griffin (nospam_at_here.net)
Date: 09/06/04 

Date: Mon, 06 Sep 2004 12:41:19 GMT

On 2004-09-06 07:35:03 -0400, "George Conklin" <nilknoc@earthlink.net> said:

> Doctors do not discuss their costs. I never heard of it. When I asked
> one doctor, he said, "Ask the nurse." When I asked the nurse, she said,
> "What is the matter? Don't you have insurance?" I didn't go back.

Well, that's because you're a dumbass. The reason we don't "discuss
costs" is twofold. First and foremost, the cost of something is
secondary to whether or not it's medically necessary. In other words,
I'm going to tell you what you should have based not on cost, but
medical necessity. I only care about costs in relative terms, not exact
dollar amounts. If you want to know how much something will cost you to
the penny, you need to contact your insurance company. *They're* the
ones who determine costs, not your doctor. Your doctor's posted fee
schedule is completely irrelevant. I could bill your insurance company
$1000 for your 15-min. office visit, but if I've contractually agreed
to only accept, say $15 from them based on their fee schedule, that's
all I'll get...and I can't bill you the difference. The same thing
applied to every covered service. So, what would you like me to say
when asked how much something will cost...$1000? It's not accurate. And
I'm not going to have the various fee schedules of 500 different
insurance plans readily at hand, nor am I likely to spend valuable time
looking it up for you. Also, individual patients with the same
insurance company will pay different amounts depending on many
variables, including their co-pay, deductible, annual cap, etc. The
reason your doctor doesn't tell you how much something will cost you is
because he probably really, truly doesn't know. If you're really
interested (and too lazy to find out for yourself), you can talk to my
office manager, who gets paid to spend time hashing these sort of
things out (and increasing my practice's overhead in the process).
Don't like it? Pay cash. Only then will we be able to tell you how much
you'll have to pay with certainty. Hey, don't blame me...it's not *my*
idea.

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