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A Third Way For Doctors - No Insurance, No Government
Reads kind of like an infomercial, but he's got a good point. When I was a kid my parents used to take us to our local GP. Mom paid $10 a visit, if I can remember that far back. I think she switched docs when the price went up to $20. When one of my brothers and one of my sisters was born in a hospital -- the rest of us were born at home -- the hospital billed her and she paid it off at so much per month.Dr. Silberman was rumored to make better than $10,000 a year. As evidence there was his black '55 Cadillac that he drove when he made house calls. You could buy Blue Cross and Blue Shield in those days but they weren't cost effective for the lower half of the income curve. HMOs were originally sold as a way to keep health care prices down. Particularly appealing was the emphasis they put on preventive medicine. Go to the doctor for your routine checkups and you'd get sick less often. Prices kept going up and PPOs were supposed to do what HMOs weren't doing. Particularly appealing was the emphasis they put on preventive medicine. Go to the doctor for your routine checkups and you'd get sick less often. The insurance companies, medical billing companies, claims processing companies, utilization managers, and what have you add a layer of costs that wasn't there before. Adding in malpractice insurance costs makes things even more gruesome. I went to routine physical therapy appointments for the past few weeks. I'm fully covered, with Tricare Prime. I had a $20 copay with each visit. The physical therapy office had stacks of "Iron Mountain" records boxes, chock full of documentation. Now we're gifted with B.O.Care. But not to worry. Despite the number of digits in the price tag it's gonna save us money. Particularly appealing is the emphasis they put on preventive medicine. Go to the doctor for your routine checkups and you'll get sick less often. Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-04-19 |
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