are physicians really altruistic?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We hold doctors on such high pedestals in this country. My best friend is chief surgeon, and the stories he tells about his docs are truly shocking. He says it is extremely common to have to reprimand his docs who try to get info on their patients' insurance first to see if they'll get a good payment from them. If they have something crappy like medicaid or some other terrible insurance, my friend says docs will initially diagnose a patient with something else that is very closely related to what they know the person has. That way they can avoid having to do surgery on the patient and pass the buck to someone else later who'll get stuck with the patient with crappy insurance. My friend has to routinely make sure that when he is on duty that his docs treat everyone who comes in like they have the same exact insurance so these shenanigans don't go on, but the point here is that how often do things like this go on elsewhere where they don't have chiefs who do ethical jobs who look the other way. How many scummy docs are out there looking to soak as much money as they can out of the system and refuse their services for someone who needs it if they know that the patient's insurance will pay lower rates.

Your friend is sensationalizing a bit. There's always a few bad apples everywhere but doesn't mean that is how doctors are.

If that is truly the environment where “chief surgeon” works, he is responsible for a bad work environment. It starts at the top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We hold doctors on such high pedestals in this country. My best friend is chief surgeon, and the stories he tells about his docs are truly shocking. He says it is extremely common to have to reprimand his docs who try to get info on their patients' insurance first to see if they'll get a good payment from them. If they have something crappy like medicaid or some other terrible insurance, my friend says docs will initially diagnose a patient with something else that is very closely related to what they know the person has. That way they can avoid having to do surgery on the patient and pass the buck to someone else later who'll get stuck with the patient with crappy insurance. My friend has to routinely make sure that when he is on duty that his docs treat everyone who comes in like they have the same exact insurance so these shenanigans don't go on, but the point here is that how often do things like this go on elsewhere where they don't have chiefs who do ethical jobs who look the other way. How many scummy docs are out there looking to soak as much money as they can out of the system and refuse their services for someone who needs it if they know that the patient's insurance will pay lower rates.

Your friend is sensationalizing a bit. There's always a few bad apples everywhere but doesn't mean that is how doctors are.

If that is truly the environment where “chief surgeon” works, he is responsible for a bad work environment. It starts at the top.

No, hospital administration has control over who gets hired.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughters 2 year pediatric annual check up was a waste.
My kid was not sick, he told me what I already learnt in high school psychology class
And he used a chart to verify that my child is not obese. As if he needed all those medical school years for that

When we lived abroad the babies got their vaccinations at a clinic, administered by nurses. Here I had to get an appointment with a pediatrician for the same

Meanwhile at my kids they caught strabismus early with the tracking test. Something that, I, an experienced parent and my physician spouse had not yet caught.
Just because your child is fine does not mean they’re a waste of an appointment.

Yes, it was a waste of an appointment, easy money for the dr
I mean who needs that many years of education to use a chart to tell someone that their child is not obese

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doctors order unnecessary tests. I know someone who went to see a dr regarding pain in his leg, dr sent him to the ER because of a suspected blood clot, which proved to be false

All that hassle, expense and wait all for nothing
Might as well not have gone to a dr, since the pain is still there

Your example is terrible. Do you really expect 100% of tests to be positive?
At least have valid complaints.

I know, right?

Some of the people on here are ridiculous.

Doctors are nor miracle workers. They can't x-ray your bodies with their eyes and predict what tests are positives. That and the fact this country is so damn lawsuit happy would make me want to turn away from advising anyone from being in the health profession.

So it is a fear of being sued that is driving up the cost of healthcare?
The tests you order, the better it is financially for them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughters 2 year pediatric annual check up was a waste.
My kid was not sick, he told me what I already learnt in high school psychology class
And he used a chart to verify that my child is not obese. As if he needed all those medical school years for that

When we lived abroad the babies got their vaccinations at a clinic, administered by nurses. Here I had to get an appointment with a pediatrician for the same

Meanwhile at my kids they caught strabismus early with the tracking test. Something that, I, an experienced parent and my physician spouse had not yet caught.
Just because your child is fine does not mean they’re a waste of an appointment.

Yes, it was a waste of an appointment, easy money for the dr
I mean who needs that many years of education to use a chart to tell someone that their child is not obese

You know that no one is forcing you to do the well-checks, correct?
You can choose not to use a pediatrician since they’re worthless to you.
Consider yourself lucky you have healthy kids and move along. I thought my kid was “fine” and it 100% served the purpose of early detection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doctors order unnecessary tests. I know someone who went to see a dr regarding pain in his leg, dr sent him to the ER because of a suspected blood clot, which proved to be false

All that hassle, expense and wait all for nothing
Might as well not have gone to a dr, since the pain is still there

Your example is terrible. Do you really expect 100% of tests to be positive?
At least have valid complaints.

I know, right?

Some of the people on here are ridiculous.

Doctors are nor miracle workers. They can't x-ray your bodies with their eyes and predict what tests are positives. That and the fact this country is so damn lawsuit happy would make me want to turn away from advising anyone from being in the health profession.

So it is a fear of being sued that is driving up the cost of healthcare?
The tests you order, the better it is financially for them

Yes, it is a fear of being sued that drives up the cost of healthcare. Also, the sky is blue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We hold doctors on such high pedestals in this country. My best friend is chief surgeon, and the stories he tells about his docs are truly shocking. He says it is extremely common to have to reprimand his docs who try to get info on their patients' insurance first to see if they'll get a good payment from them. If they have something crappy like medicaid or some other terrible insurance, my friend says docs will initially diagnose a patient with something else that is very closely related to what they know the person has. That way they can avoid having to do surgery on the patient and pass the buck to someone else later who'll get stuck with the patient with crappy insurance. My friend has to routinely make sure that when he is on duty that his docs treat everyone who comes in like they have the same exact insurance so these shenanigans don't go on, but the point here is that how often do things like this go on elsewhere where they don't have chiefs who do ethical jobs who look the other way. How many scummy docs are out there looking to soak as much money as they can out of the system and refuse their services for someone who needs it if they know that the patient's insurance will pay lower rates.

Your friend is sensationalizing a bit. There's always a few bad apples everywhere but doesn't mean that is how doctors are.

If that is truly the environment where “chief surgeon” works, he is responsible for a bad work environment. It starts at the top.

No, hospital administration has control over who gets hired.

And the Chief manages them. Look - you’re being overly dramatic. If that’s the environment in his hospital, he needs to take a hard look at his leadership.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is wrong with wanting to be paid for the work you do? What other field doesn’t get paid for their efforts? Why would someone slave away studying for years and not want to be fairly compensated?

Absolutely nothing wrong with it all. But then we also shouldn't treat them like Gods either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doctors order unnecessary tests. I know someone who went to see a dr regarding pain in his leg, dr sent him to the ER because of a suspected blood clot, which proved to be false

All that hassle, expense and wait all for nothing
Might as well not have gone to a dr, since the pain is still there

Your example is terrible. Do you really expect 100% of tests to be positive?
At least have valid complaints.

I know, right?

Some of the people on here are ridiculous.

Doctors are nor miracle workers. They can't x-ray your bodies with their eyes and predict what tests are positives. That and the fact this country is so damn lawsuit happy would make me want to turn away from advising anyone from being in the health profession.

So it is a fear of being sued that is driving up the cost of healthcare?
The tests you order, the better it is financially for them

Yes, it is a fear of being sued that drives up the cost of healthcare. Also, the sky is blue.

So health care in Texas (with insanely stringent caps and standards malpractice suits) is markedly cheaper? Hint- it isnt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is wrong with wanting to be paid for the work you do? What other field doesn’t get paid for their efforts? Why would someone slave away studying for years and not want to be fairly compensated?

Absolutely nothing wrong with it all. But then we also shouldn't treat them like Gods either.

Have you even read a snippet of the forums this week? They are definitely not being treated as “Gods”. What a joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Doctors order unnecessary tests. I know someone who went to see a dr regarding pain in his leg, dr sent him to the ER because of a suspected blood clot, which proved to be false

All that hassle, expense and wait all for nothing
Might as well not have gone to a dr, since the pain is still there

Your example is terrible. Do you really expect 100% of tests to be positive?
At least have valid complaints.

I know, right?

Some of the people on here are ridiculous.

Doctors are nor miracle workers. They can't x-ray your bodies with their eyes and predict what tests are positives. That and the fact this country is so damn lawsuit happy would make me want to turn away from advising anyone from being in the health profession.

So it is a fear of being sued that is driving up the cost of healthcare?
The tests you order, the better it is financially for them

Yes, it is a fear of being sued that drives up the cost of healthcare. Also, the sky is blue.

Such deep analysis. Given the economic incentives for 'defensive medicine', it's hard to believe that it's truly about avoiding lawsuits versus increasing compensation. This is sort of like how docs claim they aren't influenced by drug reps, yet pharma spends billions on drug reps... It's the economics that matter, not rhetoric.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is wrong with wanting to be paid for the work you do? What other field doesn’t get paid for their efforts? Why would someone slave away studying for years and not want to be fairly compensated?

Absolutely nothing wrong with it all. But then we also shouldn't treat them like Gods either.

Have you even read a snippet of the forums this week? They are definitely not being treated as “Gods”. What a joke.

Did you see all of the people justifying their behavior?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The doctor hating on here is so ridiculous. No one is forcing you to see a doctor or have a doctor. When you have an emergency then just treat yourself since they all suck so much. Again just like any profession most people do the work because they like helping people but they also want to be paid fairly for the training they had to endure and to pay off their +200000 loans and to also support their families. Surgeons spend 7+ years in residency crafting their art. At the end of the day, who cares if they are doing it for altruistic reasons? If they can do the surgery you need then that’s all that matters. I don’t see people asking for plumbers to have altruistic reasons to unclog toilets.

Basically, if you don’t like doctors then don’t see them. No one is forcing you.

I would love to skip the doctors appt for routine prescription refills. Such a waste of money and time.

I guess it’s possible that some doctors are needlessly bringing people in but often the standard of care requires reassessment. They have an ethical and professional responsibility to provide appropriate follow up (not to mention they are risk of being sued should they “just send in a refill” inappropriately.)

People call my doctor husband after two years of not coming into the office demanding a refill. Of course, he has to ask that they visit first. He has a responsibility to prescribe meds responsibly and ethically as the above poster stated. Happens all the time.
He does not charge co-pays to those who cannot afford the co-pay. Very altrustic. And no, he isn't making the salary of most of these law firm partners running around here and works harder.

In the US, this is a felony, unless he is NOT charging insurance for the insurance part of payment. You cannot legally charge the insurance and not charge the copay if the copay is a part of the contractual agreement between the insurer and the patient -- this violates the Federal False Claims Act.

This seems not to be the case:

https://www.whistleblowerllc.com/copay-waiver/

BTW do you practice in this area of law? If so then this concerns me. It took me about 35 seconds on google to figure out your claim was not true. I wish people would think before calling someone else a felon. But. this is the internet after all.

No ... but I can apparently read the article you linked better than you can. (?) That concerns me, actually.

From *your link*:

As a result, routine copay waiver is illegal and results in criminal and civil penalties. Routine co-payment waiver also violates the False Claims Act, and the government and whistleblowers can recover millions of dollars for this practice.
...
It is not illegal to write off a patient’s copay balance if the provider makes a good-faith attempt to collect. However, when a provider has a policy of not attempting to collect copays that becomes illegal.

Did you miss that the poster states that her husband makes a practice of routinely writing off co-pays?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The doctor hating on here is so ridiculous. No one is forcing you to see a doctor or have a doctor. When you have an emergency then just treat yourself since they all suck so much. Again just like any profession most people do the work because they like helping people but they also want to be paid fairly for the training they had to endure and to pay off their +200000 loans and to also support their families. Surgeons spend 7+ years in residency crafting their art. At the end of the day, who cares if they are doing it for altruistic reasons? If they can do the surgery you need then that’s all that matters. I don’t see people asking for plumbers to have altruistic reasons to unclog toilets.

Basically, if you don’t like doctors then don’t see them. No one is forcing you.

I would love to skip the doctors appt for routine prescription refills. Such a waste of money and time.

I guess it’s possible that some doctors are needlessly bringing people in but often the standard of care requires reassessment. They have an ethical and professional responsibility to provide appropriate follow up (not to mention they are risk of being sued should they “just send in a refill” inappropriately.)

People call my doctor husband after two years of not coming into the office demanding a refill. Of course, he has to ask that they visit first. He has a responsibility to prescribe meds responsibly and ethically as the above poster stated. Happens all the time.
He does not charge co-pays to those who cannot afford the co-pay. Very altrustic. And no, he isn't making the salary of most of these law firm partners running around here and works harder.

In the US, this is a felony, unless he is NOT charging insurance for the insurance part of payment. You cannot legally charge the insurance and not charge the copay if the copay is a part of the contractual agreement between the insurer and the patient -- this violates the Federal False Claims Act.

This seems not to be the case:

https://www.whistleblowerllc.com/copay-waiver/

BTW do you practice in this area of law? If so then this concerns me. It took me about 35 seconds on google to figure out your claim was not true. I wish people would think before calling someone else a felon. But. this is the internet after all.

No ... but I can apparently read the article you linked better than you can. (?) That concerns me, actually.

From *your link*:

As a result, routine copay waiver is illegal and results in criminal and civil penalties. Routine co-payment waiver also violates the False Claims Act, and the government and whistleblowers can recover millions of dollars for this practice.
...
It is not illegal to write off a patient’s copay balance if the provider makes a good-faith attempt to collect. However, when a provider has a policy of not attempting to collect copays that becomes illegal.

Did you miss that the poster states that her husband makes a practice of routinely writing off co-pays?

I did not read the post to say that her husband routinely wrote off copays for everyone. In fact, the text that YOU highlighted states that the doctor does not charge copays to those who cannot afford them. So yes, under your scenario that you created, he may be violating the law. Under the scenario that the poster actually described (using the text that YOU highlighted), it would most likely not violate the law.

Here's another link that makes that pretty clear.

https://www.hollandhart.com/pdf/Waiving-Copays-and-Deductibles.pdf

I'm gonna assume that the doctor knows most of the laws that regulate the practice, or at least has an office manager who knows these laws, and I'll assume he's operating within the law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughters 2 year pediatric annual check up was a waste.
My kid was not sick, he told me what I already learnt in high school psychology class
And he used a chart to verify that my child is not obese. As if he needed all those medical school years for that

When we lived abroad the babies got their vaccinations at a clinic, administered by nurses. Here I had to get an appointment with a pediatrician for the same

Did he ask if you could spell?