Is cash-only medicine the wave of the future?

[ringmastery]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=541&ncid=541&e=1&u=/ap/20040404/ap_on_he_me/cash_only_doctors_1

RENTON, Wash. - When Chuck O'Brien visits his doctor, they talk about his aches and pains, his heart problems and his diet, but never about his health insurance.

That's because his doctor only accepts cash.

Dr. Vern Cherewatenko is one of a small but growing number of physicians across the country who are dumping complicated insurance contracts in favor of simple cash payments.

When O'Brien leaves the exam room, he writes a check for $50 and he's done — no forms, no ID numbers, no copayments.

"This is traditional medicine. This is what America was like 30 years ago," said O'Brien, 55 and self-employed, who believes he has saved thousands of dollars by dropping his expensive insurance policy and paying cash. "It's a whole world of difference."

[brokensymmetry]

1. Yes, I think so. n/t

.

[xultar]

2. So, does that mean that they will only charge $5.00 for a $15,000 band-aid

WTF,
They can't go CASH only. Shit I can get at CVS they charge 5,000% more. I'd have to sell my home to get a physcial.

No effin way can they go CASH only. :crazy:

[Bread and Circus]

11. I do Physicals for $25 to $75 dollars in certain instances.

$38 to $98 is about right for a doctor visit depending
on how much time it takes.

[SoCalDem]

13. Sounds about right.. I always pay $45-90 at the VET

so human doctors deserve at LEAST as much :)

We may end up having to do like they did a hundred years ago.. Each town would "hire" their own doctors, nurses, teachers, and provide for them.. and in doing so, "absolve" them from lawsuits, in exchange for loyal service..

It's sad , that as far as we have come, that some greedy "business people" have taken the "kindness" occupations and saddled them with so much strife..

[Nikia]

19. The clinic I go to charges $100 for doctor visits

I have been told that is what they charge to people without insurance. The doctors are alotted 15 minutes for those appointments but I seem to get less time than that, especially if they are running behind.

[SoCalDem]

3. I posted this to your other thread.. didn't know which was the dupe

SoCalDem (1000+ posts) Sun Apr-04-04 03:13 PM
Response to Original message

1. It may come to that..

Edited on Sun Apr-04-04 03:13 PM by SoCalDem
When my boys were little, I would take all three of them to the pediatrician together, and no matter what he did, I would pay a flat rate when I left the office.. Usually around $25.00.. If they got shots, I paid a bit more.. He gave me med samples if they needed meds..

We did have insurance, but it was the old-style.. We had the doctor receipts and med receipts, and when they added up to our deductible, we stapled them to a form, and mailed them in.. a few weeks later we got a check for 80% of what we had spent over the deductible.. You could wait until the year was over, and get a big check, or you could send them in as you got them and they would keep track for you..

The only rub happens when the hospital is involved...


Some doctors are even offering a yearly service contract, for "unlimited visits"..

Doctors may have to get creative..

[amazona]

4. doesn't add up

I'm way younger than 55 and I sure as **** can't get a catastrophic policy with a $2,000 deductible for $75 a month. Who are they kidding? Try $250 a month. And I do not have heart disease.

Cash only is not going to work because people can't pay $100,000 to $250,000 cash for a course of chemotherapy when they get cancer, as 1 in 4 Americans will in their lifetime.

The only reason people can afford to pay $50 for an office visit and then not have health insurance is because they fantasize that they will never become ill.

I have been searching for an insurance policy for months and months to cover a self-employed woman in her 40s for a reasonable cost. Catastrophic isn't much cheaper than my HMO and yet it has all sorts of loopholes and appears to cover nothing -- one insurance agent I spoke with said he didn't like to sell it, as it was basically a fraud product in my parish.

This gentleman's mileage may vary. But I doubt it. Reporters are pretty bad at numbers, and this story just sounds bogus on the face of it.

[SoCalDem]

6. Individual insurance is all but unaffordable, and the politicians

KNOW it.. They have excellent care, so who cares about the rest of us..

Insurance has morphed into an ugly beast.. They are more into investing,building buildings and creating profit for their shareholders..

This is why is MUST not remain privatized.. It's almost a national emergency, and soon will be..

Younger/healthy people (who don't go to doctors that often) are the ones who usually have access to company provided insurance..

Poor, underemployed people who have no access through their jobs, are the ones most likely to NEED it..and then there are the 40 & 50-somethings who get downsized-outsourced out of jobs, who NEED it and cannot afford it, who are hurt the most,, But if you are at the "end" of your "productive" career, who cares if you get sick and die?? NO ONE except your own family and friends.. That's the sad truth..

The more boomers who die from lack of care BEFORE we actually try to collect social security, the better , as far as the government cares..

[arewethereyet]

8. if you socialize medicine good docs will opt out

in favor of a new high end private practice and you'll wind up with rationed care for the masses.

[SoCalDem]

9. rationed care is still better than NO care

:shrug:

[area51]

15. rationed care

We already have health care rationed in the USA; it's rationed on the ability to pay.

[ikojo]

22. Care is also rationed by the insurance companies.

I work for an HMO and every HMO and regular insurance company has a staff of nurses. Some of these nurses are paid to go to the hospital and do chart review(the insurance company term is concurrent review). They look at the patient charts and using various insurance company data they determine whether a patient should be discharged. There is data out there that says how long a person should be in the hospital for a C Section or how long for an appendectomy.
If the insurance company nurse says a patient should go home but the doc thinks the patient should stay in the hospital, then the doc is forced to fight it out with the insurance company for extra days. This is time taken away from patient care.
Please, be aware that care is rationed. It is rationed to maximize the profits of the insurance company.

[SoCalDem]

24. I have a friend who worked for an HMO (shall be nameless)

and he quit because of what he had to do..

He was told to routinely DENY coverage on the first presentation of bills, and to forward them to the patient.. Their thinking was that SOME people would just pay it.. Of course, what went "un-said" was that the bill would still be paid to the doctor/hospital, and they would just pocket the money sent by the patient

[ikojo]

25. Most claims when first submitted are not seen

by a human being. They are "processed" by "the system." I don't know if most are rejected or paid. If a claim is rejected then there is a very short window for the physician or member to appeal or question why the claim was rejected, this is usually 90 days from the date on the EOB.
If the physician or member does not request a review within a specified time the claim remains rejected and if the billing provider has a contract with the HMO they are not supposed to bill the patient, unless the claim was rejected indicating the member responsible.
What happens is that many providers will send the patient a notice that indicates THIS IS NOT A BILL. However a lot of people don't understand how the insurance system really works so they tend to go ahead and pay the doctor or other medical provider because they do not want to be turned over to a collection agency.
Let's not even get going about "bodily attachment" to get medical bills paid. Go here to read an article on bodily attachment http://www.democracynow.org/static/healthcare.shtml

[arewethereyet]

5. it already is for the best ones

[Nikia]

7. I might be better off that way

For office visits at least. I'd pay $50/office visit for a good doctor who would spend time with me instead of talking to me for five minutes and handing me some free samples or calling in a perscription. At the clinic I am required to go to as part of my insurance, I will end up usually having to go back a couple of times for the same problem before they will do anything besides give me drugs. My copay is $20. I don't feel like it is a very good deal.

[Bread and Circus]

10. I wish. But only for small things like doctor visits.....

It would actually bring prices down.

[KG]

12. one day, USians will march to DC with pitchforks & torches and

demand universal healthcare. i hope they wake up to how they are being screwed soon.

[Malva Zebrina]

14. I can't afford any of it

so it does not matter to me anymore

If I get sick, well too bad--and actually I have developed a sense of humor about this.

I will just take the herbs and whatever happens to me, happens.

LOL and I think at this point, that that is funny.

No way can I afford doctor visits that are near one hundred dollars--and if they are twenty five dollars, compared to the near one hundred dollars, what is it exactly would I be getting for my money?

LOL--I am hysterical.

Just put me out on the ice. No way am I going to get locked into the medicine that i cannot afford, way of life.

I would prefer the Epicurean solution as it is now.

I will just enjoy to the max anything that I can as it comes my way. If I can take my twenty five to one hundred dollars and go to a flower show, well hell, I will and I would prefer that to paying out my entire 535 dollars of SS, which I use for food and other bills , expecially in the winter here, to pharma companies and doctor's who overcharge.

[dweller]

16. LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE

that quote is decouppaged on the side of a small metal tubular pill holder (like used to be supplied w/ Tums?) that i picked up from my late grandmother's things. She lived to be 98 1/2 yrs old, died in her bed at her own home.

you gotta keep a positive outlook,
dp

[Malva Zebrina]

23. My grandmother lived to be 103 .

and it was only in her last two years that she needed any medicine.

Of course she did have a daughter (my aunt) who had enough moral responsibility to care for her own mother in her last years rather than out her in a "home" or out on the ice!

Some of us do not have the luck that our own children, who seem to have grown up resenting their own parents for one selfish reason or the other, who will feel threatened in the last years of our life.

So, we need to purchase a heavy chain from the local supermarket, and, swear that we will chain ourselves to the kitchen stove first, before we will consent to be putting into a "home" no matter how glitzy they seem to make it appear

we WANT to die in our own homes--not in some corporate run "nursing home" and I have seen, up close and really up close as a nurse working in those "homes" that that is NOT where I want to end up.

I would first rather go to the rocks and jump into the surf on the rocky coast of Maine, in the middle of January .

[dweller]

17. maybe someday again

we'll be back to paying in produce and farm crops...eggs, fresh veggies, etc.

:shrug:

who knows?
dp

[sangha]

18. Now there's a liberal idea!

Privatized medicine!

:shrug:

[leftofthedial]

20. not if the bushgang are reinstated in November

another four years of them and the currency will collapse, leaving barter as the only way to pay your doctor.

[ikojo]

21. There is a trend toward boutique medicine

People pay a fee to get into a physician's practice and then agree to pay for all office visits and lab tests.

The following article is from Feb 2002

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12381

More and more American doctors are abandoning the age-old Hippocratic notion that general practitioners of medicine have a social responsibility to respond to the health care needs of the whole community. Instead, these upwardly-mobile GPs are jettisoning the bulk of their patients and re-opening as "boutique" or "concierge" practices that cater exclusively to the well-off. How well-off? To get into a boutique doctor's office, you have to pay an annual fee ranging from $4,000 to $20,000 per family member. That's above and beyond what you pay for your health insurance.

-snip-