You make some valid points and some I disagree with (I'm related to several doctors as well and helped one set up an office and billing system).
But why is $100 for a 15-minute follow up excessive? You are paying for years of hard study and sacrifice and difficult study so they will know what they need to know to conduct the follow up properly. As Royko put it:
"[Doctors] must (a) get excellent grades and a fine educational foundation in high school in order to (b) be accepted by a good college and spend four years taking courses heavy in math, physics, chemistry and other lab work and maintain a 3.5 average or better, and (c) spend four more years of grinding study in medical school, with the 3rd and 4th years in clinical training, working 80 to 100 hours a week, and (d) spend another year as a low-pay, hard-work intern, and (e) put in another 3 to 10 years of post-graduate training, depending on your specialty and (f) maybe wind up $100,000 in debt after medical school and (g) then work an average of 60 hours a week, with many family doctors putting in 70 hours or more until they retire or fall over?"
That's worth 100 bucks to me. If it's not worth 100 bucks to you, find somebody willing to go through all that and charge less. If you can't find anybody, consider not going to the doctor (since it clearly isn't worth it). And consider also that if the rewards are less, ultimately the caliber of people willing to go through all of that training will be lower. If you don't like the care now, you sure won't like it then. |
