Latest right wing meme: Haggle with your doctor for health care...

[rfranklin]

This was on the Fox business show just now and I heard the same thing from a fellow at a social gathering. Health care too expensive? Well, you can just shop around and haggle with doctors to find the lowest price on operations, delivering your baby, etc. Sure sounds like a winner. Can you imagine what a freakin' waste of time that would be? After a while doctors would get fed up and just not respond to such telephone calls. Or the surgeon thinking, well, I'm nopt getting that much on this one, I'll just tell him its terminal and sew it back up.

[liberal N proud]

1. And the will haggle if you need treatment

[Enrique]

2. make health care like buying a car

"what can I do to put this new kidney in you today?"

[KansDem]

5. "Well, I don't know...I'll have to speak with my manager about that...I'll be right back."

[DrToast]

3. Reminds me of their strategy for global hunger

Dine and ditch.

[chollybocker]

4. "Okay Doc, here's the deal."

"You remove my infected spleen, and I'll paint your boat for free."

Yeah, that'll work. :eyes:

[Jennicut]

6. And this will somehow produce a better treament or less crappy bill for my diabetes

Thanks, 'Pubs! I will use this great advice along with Tom Coburn telling us to ask our neighbors to help pay our health bills.

[baldguy]

7. They just don't get it, do they?

Haggle with the Army to defend your house.

[Ajaye]

8. So so so so so stupid it hurts

Beyond ridiculous.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

9. HOW exactly did they say you're supposed to "haggle" with doctors for health care?

:wtf:

Also, what they did they say to do when you're faced with an emergency and don't have time to "haggle" for health care?

[lark]

10. Uh, guess what, sme of this is happening now

I work for a very large multi-specialty physician group and we get calls like this on pretty much of a weekly basis. Now, we don't get a whole lot of them, but we do get them. First, we have them go to a doctor to determine what service is needed - the layperson may know they are sick and have an idea why, but they often have no clue of what's needed and can be utterly wrong about the suspected cause/remedy. After the visit, when the treatment is determined, we call the patient and advise the price if they have requested this information. They will often call the physician back and attempt to negotiate. The co. does not promote this, but some physicians will reduce the cost (within Medicare limits)or will refer the uninsured patient to Medicaid or the County charity program.

The real problem is laypeople do not know what's needed and even if surgery is done, we don't always find what we expect and have to do a different surgery that costs a different amount. As you can imagine, this causes a lot of complaints and so the physicians are even more reluctant to get into this scenario again.

Also, for patients with insurance, often the insurance co. are not honest brokers. I've had several patients whose insurance would not pay even though their written documentation said this was a covered service. AFter 2 years of appeals, the insurance co. only paid when the pt. retained an atty. Insurance co's are the major cause of our medical system woes. Our docs fuss about tort reform, but when it was done in this state, the fees did not drop one dime - anywhere. That's a total bunch of hooey!!

[taught_me_patience]

11. Try getting a reappointment

after "haggling" for a lower price from your doctor. I guarantee he/she will be "booked solid" for the next three months. Some things are just not worth it...