I met with a new accountant yesterday. He told me that if I email him and ask if I can expense a lunch and it's a 1 minute answer, he's not gonna charge me. But if it's gonna take him a good amount of time to respond, then he will. And I think that this is completely fair. I'd expect the same from a doctor. If I am asking a very occasional and non-urgent question with a quick answer (e.g., can I take my medicine and…
1. The accountant will tell you that pricing up front, so you can make a decision before you send an email. No doctor in America will answer any question about pricing ahead of time.
2. The vast majority of Americans know precisely when they need to pay taxes and roughly how much work they will be, how many accounts they're dealing with, what types of questions might arise, etc. It is extremely rare for most people to ever have an urgent question for an accountant. Healthcare on the other hand is inherently unpredictable, and urgent questions are very common.
3. Most people don't have, and never will have, an accountant. Every single living human of any age needs at least one doctor, and often quite a few.
4. If you don't like your accountant's pricing, you can easily shop around for a different one. You can't do that with a doctor (see point 1). You can sort of do it with insurance, but that isn't the same thing, can only be done once a year, and the options are very limited for most people.
5. If you don't like dealing with an accountant at all, you can just get a normal job and never talk to one again. It's entirely within your control. If you don't like dealing with doctors, you're out of luck unless you want to die.