When you pay out of pocket, you can see any doctor you want, and no one can boss you around.
Who goes round, comes around. That’ s how it was in the ‘40s and ‘50s.
trend has been to this for the last few decades. Has become even more so now with O care
Now is a good time for all kinds of better ideas and designs for health care to pop up. Entrepreneurs wake up and start your engines. Compete against the behemoth of government.
I have been going to doc who didn’t take insurance for nearly a decade...He has saved me Beaucoup bucks...because he works for ME...not insurance Co or govt
“Eliminating insurance billing cuts 40% of the practices’ overhead expenses, enabling them to keep fees low, doctors say.”
Why hell yea it does! Also, if doctors and hospitals would just charge what insurance pays then many wouldn’t even need insurance.
My MRI last year supposedly cost, or was charged at 3,000 bucks. Insurance paid 450 I paid 200. If they charged 650 for an mri then I wouldn’t need insurance. Now, if I didn’t have insurance they would charge me 3,000. How fair is that? That is how people go bankrupt paying their medical bills.
Except the doctor I want is quitting.
Paying cash for an ordinary office visit is fine, and there are a number of primary care physicians who are turning to the concierge care or cash practice model.
But there are a LOT of medical procedures that the average person can’t afford to pay cash for. Labwork, surgical procedures (even minor ones), and some imaging are more than people can come up with on a regular basis. Many people have medical problems that need care constantly and paying for it is just not possible. This is especially true of old people who have a constellation of problems.
I work for a physician and I have a good bit of insight into what it actually costs to run a practice and thus what a doctor needs to charge to stay afloat. We get so little from Medicare and Medicare supplement plans that the doctor is already giving charity just by seeing these patients. As some patients next year lose their insurance coverage due to Obamacare and can’t afford to pay out of pocket for treatments, this practice may have to close. It will be a great loss, if so.
my great grandfather was a country doctor down in Warwick, GA. He took chickens, wild turkey, eggs and yard work for his services. They didn’t have health insurance, but he took care of people and was loved.
screw Obama and his control freaks. Bring in the bartering!
If you got Fedzilla out of the medical industry completely there are estimates out there that say prices would drop up to 86%.
this works for routine office visits, but once you need surgery or hospitalization you have to deal with institutions
My experience with the system (which has been far too extensive in the past 2 yrs unfortunately) is that doctors costs are a small fraction of big medical bills.
On a $60,000 surgery the knife guy got $3500.
So “bending the cost curve” as Caliph Baraq likes to say is really mostly about other areas.
Concierge Medical Care. On the horizon (and those who can afford it, welcome it).
The government will crack down on this.
My wife just turned 64 three weeks ago and had her medical insurance policy cancelled about two weeks ago. Happy Birthday from ObamaCare. When she checked on getting replacement insurance, it would have cost her a whopping $856 a month with a $6000 deductible and 20% co-pays after that. She is retired and on Social Security. The medical premium would have taken 2/3 of her monthly income. She is healthy and will be eligible for Medicare in a year, so she decided to ride out this next year as uninsured.
She needed her prescriptions refilled so her doctor agreed to keep her on as a cash patient until she went on Medicare. Today she went in for her first appointment to get her prescriptions refilled. She paid cash for the visit and saved 20% and got her medicines at Walmart. Her total cost was just under $200. Her refills every 3 months will be about $60 each time.
So with the insurance, it would have cost her just over $16000 with premiums and the deductible. By paying cash to her doctor and buying her prescriptions at the lowest prices available, she will spend about $380 for the year, unless she has to go in for more visits. We’re not math majors or financial wizards, but the option she chose was a no-brainer. $380 versus $16000. There is some risk involved obviously, if she were to get injured or real sick but we will take that risk rather that fork over a big hunk of money to the insurance company that we can’t afford. Even if she pays the tax penalty for not being insured, she is still way ahead of the game money-wise.