My secretary was quite the good prosecutor and I used to send her down to SCC. She sat waiting for cases to come up for a long time. We almost always won, but paying her hourly rate to go downtown and do it was expensive. Not, they only let us sue for the monetary amount of the bill.
Most debtors move around quite a bit so you have to track them and their new employer down. You can spend a lot of time and money trying to get paid. That is why it is so sad that credit reporting is now out the window.
It’s true. It could be child support or reckless spending or too much house aka bad decisions that leads someone to bankruptcy but listing medical expenses as the reason for bankruptcy just like listing divorce or inflation is a way to try to say you were responsible despite filing bankruptcy
I wonder if those are the same even if they discharge their credit card debt but avoid medical debt
Which is good. It’s also why we should have more high deductible health plans and where employers must contribute to an employee HSA instead of funding a Cadillac plan. Admin costs drive up healthcare costs. Instead of having to follow up with insurance providers, doctors should be able to get payment directly from a patient’s HSA plan provided they’re in network and there should be caps on out of network docs that are completely disclosed
You cannot believe the time that is spent dealing with insurance in the typical practice. Here is an example. New patient calls in with some problem. Says he has XYZ insurance. Doesn’t know a thing about it, except he was told by buddies that “it should take care of everything.” Naturally, he wants to pay the minimum he can, or nothing at all. We never know exactly what procedure we will do, so we guess what procedures we might do. We might spend 30 minutes on hold talking to an insurance company to get a framework of what coverage might cover. Then we brief the patient by phone.
Patient gets angry, doesn’t feel like he should pay that much, thinks whatever insurance pays should be enough for us, and does not show up for his appointment. All our time is wasted. You can see why we market to cash-paying patients.
And all I ask of you is to consider what the REALITY of the average health care provider, who has to have a positive ROI for the time an money he spent on a LONG education.
FYI, I have been to health care lectures in many foreign countries- first world and third world. I have talked to many about their business.
All have severe problems, England probably the worst. For the longest time they have recruited Eastern European physicians to practice because not enough Brits want the crappy NHS jobs, especially for hospital ERs. Canadian municipalities often run fund raisers for hospitals to try to buy equipment they are short of. They lack sufficient hospital space- thus waiting lists for surgeries. Germany is chronically short of nurses thanks to low pay, and recruits in the Philippines. I met an Italian orthopedic surgeon and her surgical schedule was truly frightening in order to make a decent living. To be honest, I am less familiar with France, but one French doctor complained the staff are unionized and impossible to deal with.
The clown on this forum who calls himself Geezer long ago predicted that health care providers in the US would eventually be employed by the government like the model of the VA. That is ridiculous and never happens in social democracies. Physicians would unionize and cripple the system. With physicians in private practice, government can squeeze them with low fees to their heart’s content and they cannot do anything. Only thing they can do is stop practicing.
Socialized health care in the West (including Medicare here) is coming to a crisis due to demographics. In the future, the most practical way to obtain health care on a timely basis is travel to a third world country and pay cash.
I changed dentists because they completely disregarded the insurance that they SAID they accepted. I look at what my insurance says is covered; I look at their statement. The dentist lied.
I’ve never had insurance issues with physicians other than the 2.5+ decades old doctor office failing to file until after the approval for extreme specialist had expired 6 MONTHS EARLIER. Eventually I got that decided in our favour…not sure how many hours I soent on the phone with that… Many.
The first question is what do patients mean when they ask whether we “accept” their insurance? Merely accept assignment, or be signed up for the prostituting provider list?
Next to selecting a dentist from a TV ad, selecting dentists from an insurance prostituting provider list is the best way to get a crummy, dishonest professional. That’s why crooked outfits like Aspen are always on the provider lists. You practically have to be dishonest to make money on PPO list fees.DMOs guarantee any provider is a crook. It is impossible to turn a profit honestly.
Many time I have a patient who has gone to a provider list dentist first, and total charges are inappropriate and way more than I would have charged. Patients shoot themselves in the foot when they go for dentists on a list rather than dentists with a reputation for skill and honesty.
The rules are so convoluted on many dental plans it is impossible to understand. I had a patient whose claim for a crown was rejected for payment. I had sent x-rays AND photos. There was no other way to save the tooth, and crowns were covered. Turns out the policy had some arcane mouse print that declared crowns would not be allowed for severely worn teeth.
Understanding all the mouse print rules for every dental plan in a locale is impossible. It should be the patient’s responsibility, but no patients want to take the time to delve into them. Companies make plans as complicated as possible to avoid paying as many claims as possible.
Now medicine is really expensive. I’ve had some health issues recently and had to pay really big amount of money to get some help and buy pills I needed. Luckily, I found Canadian Pharmacy Online with good prices on meds and great service.
My wife is going to El Salvador for 3 weeks and I will give her a big chunk of money to replenish my Rx drugs. No medicines except psychotropic drugs need a Rx down there.
I never have been to another country that had lawyers advertising on TV urging patients to sue drug companies. Every time you pay US prices for drugs you are paying for that sort of nonsense.
Come’on Henrius… your not gonna get the sympathy you are looking for from the general public. I know lotsa docs and health care professionals and virtually ALL of them are above the 95th percentile in income. People watching you drive by in your new Porsche 911 ain’t gonna feel sorry for you. …
You are badly mistaken if you think I am looking for sympathy.
I am here to dispel lies and reveal truths. The public urges its elected representatives to enact harmful legislation when they are believe truths that are lies.
FYI, I drive a 2008 Toyota Corolla to work. None of my friends drive Porsches, although one airline captain friend does.
So health care professionals are in the 95th income bracket. Maybe so- I really don’t know. But let me ask you this. Suppose you spent $400,000 on 4 years undergraduate college and 4 years of medical school. Plus you forgo the income you could have earned at a job during that time. Then you work 70 hour weeks on a low wage doing a three year residency. Then 3 to 5 more years doing a fellowship, before you could finally join a private practice. What percentile of income would motivate you to do this? 50%? 70%?
By the way, most dental residencies usually don’t pay a thing, and can cost tuition. An orthodontist may spend 4 years in dental school and 3 years in residency, and have a debt of $800,000 before they can practice their specialty. What percentile of income would motivate a student to do that?
Evidently you live in a fantasy world.
By the way, I talk with dentists in their offices about their business in every country I visit, and quite a few physicians as well. Can you make the same claim?
Com’on Henrius, get real. Every time the conversation turns to medical costs you chime in with moans and groans about how many deadbeats are dragging you down and how worthless they are.
Most of my closest friends and acquaintances are professionals three are medical docs, two are dentists, one is a periodontist and two more have orthodontics businesses both with multiple shops. You can’t snow me about how tough the business is and how picked-on you think you are.
I’ve spent many hours in conversation with doctors, dentists, surgeons, and I’ve heard many at-work stories on countless hunting and fishing trips in their company. In my judgment if they share anything in common it’s not reacting well to criticism, ask any surgical nurse, office receptionist or dental assistant and they’ll give you the same answer.
In the end medical professionals are just people like anybody else, but some expect a little more deference than most folks you meet. They don’t like their opinions and perspectives being challenged. It’s a learned habit from their work environment.
I am nearly at the end of my career. Hate to see health care ruined by a bunch of poorly-thought-out “reforms,” but what can people do when they are fed disinformation but make bad recomendations to the government.
Nobody who owns multiple clinic sites is a typical practitioner, medical or dental. They are a shrewd business person, and would have succeeded in other endeavors as well. Shrewd business people in medicine and dentistry make good money, the same as shrewd businessmen in software or commercial construction.
Do you deny that the more people avoid paying for services, the more it will cost patients who actually pay? If you don’t think that is true, you are beyond help.
One thing you say is true. The most aggravating thing we deal with is ignorant people who read disinformation on the internet, and think their clinical acumen is as accurate as ours. Many times they think we are stupid because we aren’t up on the latest crackpot idea. I guess the same is true for any skilled person when confronted by a laymen full of internet baloney on his profession.
There are a lot of reasons US healthcare costs so much. A big one is our welfare riff-raff have some of the most disgusting and destructive lifestyles of any group of met in the world- drug addictions, gunshot wounds, trauma from fights, unplanned pregnancy. We all pay for their mischief by higher medical costs.
Relax! … The problem existed before you got in the business and it’ll be there long after you leave it.
The reason you immediately come to those conclusions is because you are a “what & how” thinker, it’s probably also why you chose the profession you find yourself harnessed to. I doubt if people think you are stupid, they are probably puzzled by your reactions. But the fact is, you chose your profession, and you have to deal with the accompanying baggage. Like people who need your services but don’t want to pay for it. Everybody has problems, you’re no different.
You chose a profession that people have a real need for. That need, by the way, is also further encouraged by the dental care industry itself with all the “happy smiles” promises of how great it would be to have shiny white straight teeth and "good dental health equals good overall health.
But when you offer a product or service that people have to have, you’re gonna get the bad with the good. Desperate people do desperate things, like over-commit their resources. It comes with the territory, and I’m pretty sure you’re not looking at an above the poverty line life in retirement. Suck it up and be happy, you coulda wound up like one of your penniless deadbeat patients…
Ya mean like:… “If you don’t think that is true, you are beyond help.”… ?
When you are in the business of providing critical services to people, you’re going to have people struggling financially who need the services you offer. It comes with the territory.
No, I’m saying that the dental industry is part of our capitalist system. And the folks, including myself, who take advantage of what it offers go into the process with open eyes.
Medical services have an inherent feature, their accounts receivables have more unpaid accounts than most other businesses, that’s the way it is. They advertise for business knowing that. You can’t claim that a person goes into that profession not understanding that basic fact.
You would not know. Factoring in student loan repayments, net incomes are not so much for young guys. A young colleague opened a practice in a posh Atlanta suburb, was going bankrupt, and killed himself. Yes, that is rare. But the outlay to buy or equip a practice is much more than it used to be.
The patients who stiff providers are not poor. They just mismanage money, as is evidenced by their bankruptcy notices.
