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More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages

wsj.com

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Re: More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages

#141

Post by moralestapia »

caditinpiscinam wrote: post #110
moralestapia wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's right, though. I moved to Canada recently and caught a flu that I didn't take care of and, in turn, developed into pneumonia. It took me FIVE days to be able sit down with a doctor and get an antibiotic prescribed even thought it was more than evident I needed immediate care. I could have died if I waited another day. But was it free? ... ehrm ... yeah. In Mexico, doctors are as free market as it can get, downsi…

> MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s president said Friday the country’s minimum wage will rise by 20% in 2024, to the equivalent of about $14.25 per day. > About one-third of Mexico’s registered workers report earning the minimum wage, which will amount to about $1.75 per hour starting Jan. 1. $60 is 4 days wages for 1/3 of workers in Mexico. It's the equivalent of $820 for someone making 75k per year in the US. So it's th…

Your reasoning is flawed as $75k/year is WAY above the minimum wage in the US. Adjusting for that, it comes to about ~$160.

I'm not saying it's fair, I'm saying it's cheap, compared to the US as that is implied by the context of this conversation.

When you buy a $1 dollar shirt from Malaysia, is it cheap? Yes. Is it fair? Who knows.

It's the same thing.

Also, doctors in Mexico make way more than minimum wage, it's not unusual for some of them to have incomes around 200k-300k USD/year, plus read about RESICO and your jaw will drop to the floor. The average person in the US would kill to have the income and purchasing power doctors have in Mexico.

Re: More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages

#142

Post by Someone1234 »

edm0nd wrote: post #102
codegeek wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk to me when you get a $4000 bill for 2 hours in ER where the actual doc saw you for 5 mins and then the nurses did band-aid and over the counter burn ointment. This with Insurance (biggest mafia). AMerican Healthcare system baby!!

Counter point, why did you even bother going to the ER if that is all that was required? That solution doesn't really scream "emergency" and seems like a waste of their time and resources...

Medical providers are constantly telling patients not to self-diagnose/self-treat/play google-doctor, but as soon as there is a billing problem, everyone uses that to victim blame. Kind of messed up if you ask me.

Personally I am not qualified to determine what a treatable and non-treatable burn looks like. Where I went to school they don't teach that.

Re: More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages

#143

Post by wwweston »

j-j-j-j wrote: post #108
danielschonfeld wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American healthcare is the epitome of capitalism run amok. It’s terrible and the only thing worse than the exorbitant fees is the complete and utter lack of consideration to the patient’s time.

None of that stuff would be possible without government. It's a statism run amok. It's the same story every time. Something works relatively OK (US health care before 20 century big-gov), huge changes to incentive structure and overheads are introduced by statists ignoring higher order effects, everything goes downhill, statists blame capitalism. Let me legally not have insurance, pay anyone in cash for my health car…

It's always been legal not to have insurance (though there was a brief period where externalizing costs that way was taxed). You can pay cash for health care as you like now with any provider who cares to negotiate with you on a cash basis. There's even a variety of non-MD providers whose licensure ranges from more accessible through informal to non-existent should you object to credentials as distorting.

If you try doing health care this way for long enough, you might even discover which incentives are poorly aligned without collective policy of some kind, but who knows, maybe not.

Re: More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages

#144

Post by BenFranklin100 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #140
BenFranklin100 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fighting the ER. The employee screwed up and did not go to the urgent care per policy for minor cuts. Still, it’s bad optics to fight an employee.

It’s bad optics to employ someone who doesn’t know what emergency means.

Lol true.

Re: More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages

#145

Post by Someone1234 »

JTbane wrote: post #111
CharlesW wrote: post #4

Here's American health care: • I needed refills for two prescriptions that I've been taking for years. This time, for opaque reasons, I needed to talk to a doctor first. • Fine, but I couldn't accommodate an in-person check-in. I chose a "video visit" that, due to logistics, I had to do while away from home. Because they were a half-hour late, I was effectively forced to do this from the couch of a Costco floor displ…

Call me old-fashioned but I really hate the idea of telemedicine.

It is a mixed bag.

For certain things, like common illnesses, it is pretty good.

But that being said, use caution. I had something minor turn into an ER visit because I used telemedicine instead of going to my GP. Telemedicine prescribed antibiotics, which was correct, but GP would have done a drain too. Lack of drainage caused uhh unpleasant problems down the road.

Re: More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages

#147

Post by Someone1234 »

sithadmin wrote: post #92
gnicholas wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this part of the reason those online pharmacy platforms (which include a doctor who will do a very quick exam/diagnosis) took off in recent years? I mostly heard about them with regard to ADHD meds but wonder if they are also useful because they don't require you to have checkups all the time for maintenance medication.

Most of those platforms seem to require the patient to pay for a virtual visit for every refill, or require some kind of a monthly fee.

That is accurate. But those virtual visits are 50% cheaper than full telemedicine visits and 70% cheaper than in-person renews.

It should be noted their virtual visits are mostly performative. You're filling in a survey beforehand and the doctor is just there to read the survey and push a big green button.

Re: More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages

#148

Post by ktosobcy »

CharlesW wrote: post #4

Here's American health care: • I needed refills for two prescriptions that I've been taking for years. This time, for opaque reasons, I needed to talk to a doctor first. • Fine, but I couldn't accommodate an in-person check-in. I chose a "video visit" that, due to logistics, I had to do while away from home. Because they were a half-hour late, I was effectively forced to do this from the couch of a Costco floor displ…

Uhm... in Poland there are usually "refill forms" at your chosen / doctors office, you fill it out, drop at the reception and then you get prescription code via sms with which you can claim it at any pharmacy (that has the drug)

Re: More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages

#149

Post by gotbeans »

codegeek wrote: post #20
CharlesW wrote: post #4

Here's American health care: • I needed refills for two prescriptions that I've been taking for years. This time, for opaque reasons, I needed to talk to a doctor first. • Fine, but I couldn't accommodate an in-person check-in. I chose a "video visit" that, due to logistics, I had to do while away from home. Because they were a half-hour late, I was effectively forced to do this from the couch of a Costco floor displ…

Talk to me when you get a $4000 bill for 2 hours in ER where the actual doc saw you for 5 mins and then the nurses did band-aid and over the counter burn ointment. This with Insurance (biggest mafia). AMerican Healthcare system baby!!

26k for an mri /w contrast last week because insurance decided it's not necessary despite the doctor asking for it.

Now the doctor has to put an appeal to explain medical necessity, I'm at his mercy.

Re: More doctors are charging fees to respond to patient messages

#150

Post by Volundr »

polski-g wrote: post #95
smallmancontrov wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why is our healthcare twice as expensive as the countries who actually do have socialized health care? When is that competition going to kick in and bring down costs? https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-...

Because we don't have death panels like in countries with government-run plans. Your insurance carrier won't deny you a bone marrow transplant because you're 85 (it costs over $1m). Other countries will deny it, because you're 85 and have had a good life. The UK's death panel is called NICE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Health_... We should have something similar in the US. 80% of all healthca…

> Your insurance carrier won't deny you a bone marrow transplant because you're 85 (it costs over $1m).

Your experience with insurance in the US is very different from mine.

My experience is insurance denying my 34 year old sister's MS meditation until she ended up in the ER.

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