Posted on 03/29/2007 4:58:45 PM PDT by neverdem
I meant if you paid them here on the scale of what Filippino doctors earn in their country, they'd be mowing lawns on the side (or they wouldn't have gone into medicine in the first place). Check out their overhead costs, their malpractice insurance costs, not to mention their student loans. Your average GP here isn't rolling in dough. Some of the specialists perhaps, but the doctors I know live in the same quarters on base as others of their rank. A doctor lives on our street, a geriatric specialist. We share the street with a gardener, a lawyer, a flight attendant, a caterer, and a cop (among many others - i.e., it's hardly beachfront property, very middle class). Most homes are in the 1800- 2000 sq. ft. range on 5000 sq ft lots.
So is the doc on our street living high on the hog? How far down in the ghetto do you want him to live?
I'm not asking anyone to live in the ghetto.
I am simply saying that I'd rather not pay $100,000 for an operation, and wondering why on earth I should be asked to.
It actually irks me that, despite these outrageous fees, nobody appears to be getting rich off them. Doctors probably got very little of the outrageous fees I paid, nurses don't make that much, and hospitals are going bust. So where is the money going? Who IS getting rich off of these fees?
If the money all goes to lawyers and insurance companies, I'd rather have my care done in another country, where a higher percentage goes to those who actually do the work. In extremis, I could buy my own equipment and set up my own hospital for less than what it takes to do one operation here!
That was my point.
Does that make more sense?
D
Sorry, I misunderstood what you meant by "doc in the box" - I consider my "doc in the box" the doctor I go to, if I absolutely HAVE to go for a referral, or generic medication, or something to get non-specialist advice on, i.e. ear infection.....I do NOT go to her for other major issues....she's useless.
OK, now I'm really confused. I never heard of anyone not on Medicaid, or a member of an HMO, who went to the hospital and didn't get an itemized billing statement. Are you saying that a representative of the hospital's business office just said to her at discharge, "You owe us $11000," without specifying in writing what she owes it for? She needs to get a properly itemized statement (which will run to many pages) before she writes any checks. And believe me, her insurance carrier will have an itemized statement before it processes any claims.
Hospitals have to charge ins. cos. and those who can pay enough so they can cover expenses for the ones who can't pay. Those and malpractice ins. costs are most of what you paid for.
Why didn't you go to a walk-in clinic? I know those aren't available everywhere, but they are a good deal where they are. I wouldn't use one for a serious illness, but I do use them for routine problems. They're cheap, for sure.
Emergency rooms and hospitals are an expensive way to treat people. Many areas of the country have low cost clinics. I'd prefer to subsidize the low cost clinics than to treat people in expensive facilities. The co-pays in the clinics are usually low so that people who need treatment for minor illnesses can get it, but it's not free, so people who have flu aren't tempted to seek medical care.
Anything short of making people responsible for their own health is going to be too expensive.
Because it was Sunday and it was closed.....and my husband was driving, I was hurting and trying to keep from gushing blood.....minor little details.
Wow, 10 patients simultaneously at $1100/hour = $11,000/hour X 24 = $254,000/day X 365 = $95 Million a year PLUS all the community and taxpayer donations buying the building and lots of equipment, Just for the ER!
But much of the "itemization" is often in code or language unfamiliar to a non-professional. I did not understand at all what most of the "tems" were.
I'm sure I made them very PO'd, but if they haven't the time to write a paragraph explaining why I was charged $300 for this or #450 for that, then I haven't the time to bother writing them a check.
Consider LASIK eye surgery. That is a medical prodecure that is handled somewhat through the market place. Since it's been done that way, it's become routine, the quality has improved, and the prices have fallen.
If that can be done for eye surgery, there's no reason it can't be done for knee surgery or heart surgery or any other medical prodecure -- other than people, who have a disdain for the marketplace, standing in the way of it.
Very good point. Most bills have a code plus a few words describing the procedure done, and some of it is easy to understand--"99254, inpatient consult"--but others are incomprehensible to the lay person, to wit: "80061, hepatic function panel." On a long statement for an inpatient stay that may run to many pages even in its abbreviated form, there couldn't possibly be space to explain just why the doctor ordered a particular test and what its purpose might be. And that's why it's necessary to be very attentive in reading any medical bill you have to pay. Your insurance carrier reads them pretty carefully and determines if the codes are appropriate for your disease.
I've seen some bills that were very humane and easy to understand, and on the backs of many ER bills there are clear explanations of what was done and why.
For a supposedly "Christian" nation, we sure spend a lot of money upholding the atheist principle that the death of the body is the end of existence. The health-care crisis is as much a symbol of spiritual lack as anything else.
For what it's worth, Chinese herbal medicine and meditation techniques work about as well as all of the expensive Western technology, at a much lower cost. Neither will stave off death, in the end, but spending millions in an attempt to avoid the inevitable is the mark of an irrational society.
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