Posted on 01/29/2013 5:40:41 AM PST by TurboZamboni
Starting in April, the practice will ask patients to pay doctors directly for their care and no longer will accept payments from insurance companies except for Medicare.
"We believe that insurance companies are making it increasingly difficult to practice patient-centered medicine," the doctors in the practice wrote to patients this month.
The doctors are joining the small but growing number of physicians who since the late 1990s have tried going the "direct pay" or "concierge" route, where doctors typically care for a smaller group of patients who are willing to pay for easier access to their physician.
It's a trend that continues even though the federal health law of 2010 will require most patients in the country starting next year to buy health insurance -- a rule that's expected to bring millions of people into the health care system.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
The Free Market is like life itself. It will find a way, even in the most inhospitable of environments.
In December my wife had to have a CAT scan. At the clinic where it was done, they told us the co-pay would be $780, but, if we paid for it outright, it was $384. Also, the out of pocket cost for paying for the review of the CAT scan was $75, $325 if we ran it through our insurance.
Outlawing insurance would lower the cost of healthcare.
It’s the dirty little secret that BC & BS has known for decades.
I know our chiropractor makes more $ via co-pay. Its a crooked wasteful system and direct pay is anathema to so called affordable care. Not everyone is going to fall for this sham of a health care scheme.
Actually, what’s coming will be a LOT of medical tourism. Smarter countries will set up high-quality hospitals, primarily staffed by their own nationals, but with Western-Trained (if not Westerners) doctors.
When the math is done, they will be cheaper than insurance co-pays and deductibles. In other words, we will have successfully OUTSOURCED medicine, just as we did with manufacturing.
Luckily we still have lawyers here - LOL.
About TIME! Considering most 'health' care doesn't even cover dental, I recently had to get dental services and went to a direct-pay place who takes NO insurance whatsoever - and payed less than half of what it would have cost by going to a 'regular' dentist.
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By putting a middle man [insurance] between you and the person providing the service, all you can do is increase the cost. It seems like simple, basic economics to me.
And no one has been able to explain to me exactly HOW 'insurance' is nothing more than government-sactioned GAMBLING!
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The People have an inalienable Right to private contract - to purchase property from someone at an agreed price, and it doesn't matter if it's a used car, and ourgrown child's toy, a gun OR health care services.
Yet you can bet your bottom dollar that direct pay medical services WILL become government's next target!
[sigh]
Back in the 80’s I worked for an internist. Charges incurred were for office as well as hospital care. If you had no insurance, he would accept small monthly payments. He was wonderful. People paid faithfully small amounts til bill was paid in full.
There are practices in Central Texas that are doing the same thing. We are seeking them out for our medical needs. May they thrive.
This kind of thing is happening all over.
I know of one doctor who is doing this and going back to paper records
Sounds fine, until you read that they’ll still take Medicare.
Hard to yank that nipple out of your mouth, isn’t it?
Also, for primary care to include routine procedures and tests this would work but for surgeries not so much... Very few people have a cool million lying around to pay for heart bypass
If you had ANY concept of the absurd tap-and-shuffle providers have to go through to try and get paid for their services, you would not blame them a bit. Some of them frankly would even prefer single payer to the current train wreck.
That’s the point. Insurance serves a useful economic purpose when it protects against catastrophic costs. Insurance which covers minor costs is horribly inefficient.
I completely agree...All the “uninsured” who use the ER’s for their care instead should have policies covering catastrophic care and pay out of pocket for everything else... but this would be akin to telling a 4 year old there is no such thing as Santa Claus. Instead we pay outrageous premiums so “Jane” can have her sex change operation.
My brother has a high-deductible insurance policy. He recently injured his knee and elected to not involve the insurance company to pay toward his deductible and just dealt with the doctor directly. His bill for x-rays of his knee and the doctor evaluation was $100. Going back to the old days of patient-to-doctor payments for incidents like this is what doctors should be encouraging. Anything to strangle the insurance companies’ influence in healthcare can only be positive.
Bingo!
Obama Lies About Supporting Single Payer at NH Town Hall
On June 30, 2003, speaking to an AFL-CIO Civil, Women’s, and Human Rights Conference, Obama said:
“I happen to be a proponent of single payer universal health care plans. . . A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/08/obama_lies_about_supporting_si.html
No, outlawing the free-riders would lower the costs of insurance.
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