Reply to how much are you willing to outsource?

Forum Index » Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers

Reply to "how much are you willing to outsource?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b][quote=Anonymous]What is "concierge service" at a physician's office?  Is there actually a price you can pay to be a VIP?  With preferential treatment?[/b]

But if "concierge service" means paying a special fee so that you can oust some other sick person from having a prime appointment slot, that's not cool.  Not blaming you, OP, but I am blaming the physician who set this up.  And I sure hope I'm wrong.[/quote]

yes and its getting VERY popular with the area pediatric practices...not sure how i feel about it[/quote]
 
 And who is this "YOU" you are referring to?  Because I've not read anything in this thread advocating not making an appointment.  Of course everyone should make an appointment.  [b]But I stand by saying "not cool" to allowing patients paying a special fee have, for example, the coveted morning slots, while the minions make do with whatever they can get[/b].[/quote]

To clarify this is NOT what a concierge practice does.  A "concierge" doctor or practice sees ONLY concierge patients.  Meaning every single patient in that practice pays a yearly fee to have access to their doctor in a way a regular practice doesn't offer.  They typically have a small number of patients and only schedule 1 patient per hour so the patients never have to wait and can spend plenty of time asking all their questions etc.  There is no such thing as a practice where some patients get preferential treatment over other patients because they pay an extra fee.

This is also not the same as a doctor who just doesn't accept insurance.  A lot of pediatricians are going that route because pediatricians are the worst paid of all physicians.  Insurance reimburses next to nothing so a lot of them have just stopped accepting insurance but again that is for ALL patients in the practice or sometimes just ALL patients with certain insurance but it's illegal to take the same insurance from 1 patient but not accept it from another.  Physicians also have to charge all patients in their practice the same amount, you can't charge one patient less than another for the same service.[/quote]

Two things:

1) There are plenty of doctors who offer a "preferred provider" level within a regular practice. For example, this big practice in Arlington does: http://www.gimg.com/pricing. It's getting pretty common.

2) Physicians can absolutely charge patients whatever they want. Most physicians negotiate fee schedules with different insurers and have a private/direct pay fee schedule. Its one of the many reasons the uninsured get ripped off--if you don't have insurance, you pay the full fee (say, $100), but if you had insurance, the provider would only bill the insurer $55 for the same service, and you would pay 20% of that ($11).

If they accept Medicare, they have to charge all Medicare patients the same fees, which are based on the Medicare fee schedule. Apart from that, they can do whatever they can get away with.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics