Personal experience with that - my pop was the small town doc where I grew up, malpractice insurance was cheap in those days, and he did house calls in the rural area. Sometimes he'd come hope with some livestock in payment, like 20lbs of chicken or some such, for splinting a farmer's leg. We lived quite well, he had a private plane, etc. A lot of pro bono too, no one got turned away for lack of money, period, even the deadbeats who had money but didn't pay.
My brother is now practicing, and his wife is an OBGYN, combined $200,000 insurance payments per year. He figures if he skipped insurance altogether he could charge $100 less per visit.
Nice, when you think much of that $100 x several patients per day x thousands of docs goes through the tort system, and what's left goes for patient care.
It's about time this reaches the mainstream-controversy stage... |
