Posted on 06/15/2013 6:25:26 PM PDT by grundle
"The paperwork, the hassles, it just got to be overwhelming," Nunamaker said. "We knew that we had to find a better way to practice."
So Nunamaker and his partner set up a membership-based practice called Atlas M.D. -- a nod to free-market champion Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged.
By cutting out the middleman, Nunamaker said he can get a cholesterol test done for $3, versus the $90 the lab company he works with once billed to insurance carriers. An MRI can be had for $400, compared to a typical billed rate of $2,000 or more.
Nunamaker encourages his patients to carry some type of high-deductible health insurance plan in case of an emergency or serious illness. But for the everyday stuff, he said his plan works better for both doctor and patient.
"It would be like if car insurance paid for gas, oil and tires," he said. "It would be very expensive, and you'd have to get pre-approval for a trip out of town."
Kevin Petersen, a Las Vegas-based general surgeon, stopped taking insurance in 2005. Petersen named the same reasons as Nunamaker: too much paperwork and overhead, declining payments from insurance companies, and a general loss of control.
"The insurance industry took over my practice," he said. "They were telling me what procedures I could do, who I could treat -- I basically became their employee."
Now Petersen does hernia operations for $5,000 a pop, which includes anesthesia, operating room time and follow-up visits. He negotiates special rates for the anesthesiologist and the operating room, and is able to provide the service for about a third of what a patient might pay otherwise.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Interesting. A MRI machine is a BIG capital investment but not a big operating cost. So the cost is highly related to how much of the capital cost you're paying with each scan.
HHS is already working on killing that sensible system, and the IRS will punish the Drs.
It’s how my Family did it back in the 50s.
Imagine paying Doc Brown with a chicken back when
I worked in a physician’s office right out of college. Nobody had insurance, everybody paid in cash or were billed. I worked in a two person office. . . the doctor and me. It was a very busy practice. We saw patients every 10 minutes and it cost $4.00 a visit.
Insurance was for catastrophic illness, hospital coverage, or emergency care.
My husband and I do not have dental or optical coverage. We knew when we retired that those were part of our personal yearly expenses.
It’s was somewhat of a rhetorical question since my parents (and theirs) did the same in the 20-50s/60s.
It would be interesting to see a financial analysis done, even the case where you had to borrow money (assuming you could) to pay the doc. What would the payment with interest be compared to various insurance premium rates (especially those apparently on the way).
No. He just said he knew what one should cost. Hates the insurance medicaid medicare fraud system. He is a hater but a good doctor. The wife and I went and had him do some tests and stuff. We priced them at the local clinic and they wanted $749 and he charged $178.
Kaiser started this, right?
Sounds like a good place to get a test done
Where? I've been looking and looking for an inexpensive MRI (I need one for my shoulder) and I can't find one for under $1,000. I'd fly somewhere to get one for that price!
Yes. I'm only 45, but even I can remember going to our doctor's house (in our same neighborhood) for vaccinations and routine care. The only other person there was his wife, who made hot tea and chatted with us at the kitchen table. I guarantee you, there were no insurance forms involved.
Elite liberals will keep it if it benefits them... if it benefits the people, they'll ban it.
If you put the doctors list in a super, secret, special place on the FR server accessible only to trusted FReepers the NSA will never find it!
It was here in Irving I think, hang on
In the 20s & 30s, that how Mom & Dad’s families did it, with a neighborhood doc. When they both went into US Army in early 40s in WWII - she as RN Lt and he in D-Day and Battle of The Bulge - they had real medical care. But civilians back home still used local docs and paid in-kind, or what they could. Barter plus a little cash worked. But we sure didn’t have the medical system overhead we do today.
Of course they do. It's not "fair" that Ubama's moochers have to dip into their welfare checks to pay for services from competent cash-only doctors.
I read on ZeroHedge or Market Ticker a while back that if you got the government out of health care the cost of it would drop about 86%.
TX? Kind of far from NH...but, maybe she has a tip for finding prices like that around here.
Dad said it was a mixture of goods, food, labor and some small amount of cash, if they had it. Docs didn’t charge interest back then. In the late-50s/60s onward, things were a lot more affluent, and it was insurance policy thru Dad’s Fortune 75 company, Allied Chemical.
My dentist still cleans and flosses teeth himself (no “hygenist” for him). And his receptionist doesn’t have a computer; appointments are still penciled into a big date book, and receipts are written out by hand on “ditto-style” paper. You pay up front and if you have insurance, it’s up to you to get their reimbursement. My 3 kids LOVE him. No fake cavities filled ($$) and no pressure for the “fad” of early braces ($$$$$$).
I will mourn the day he retires.
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