I was approached by a friend who was in desperate need for money. Boy did he have the wrong person. He was told by his doctor after a physical that he had to have a procedure done or it could lead to serious complications. He is on Medicare. However, the doctor needed money up front before he did the procedure. Medicare will reimburse the doctor for most of the cost, but the doctor can’t wait for the reimbursement and Medicare won’t pay for total bill. Where is this up front money supposed to come. My friend is retired and he has no pension. Why does the doctor need it up front? My friend had already been told to have another procedure done for a different problem, but after talking with me about some of my natural product options he held up on this less serious procedure. After investigation, another doctor said he didn’t need to have the less serious procedure performed because the symptoms were caused by the more “serious” one. This would have been a waste of money, pain, inconvenience, and time. This is what is happening in the most areas of the medical field.
I can tell you about the illegal charges for labs that weren’t done. This particular individual was proud of the fact of what he had done and the way he made so much money. He later ran for political office. He didn’t succeed and I helped.:)
There was a good article about Mayo Clinic on the news and how they do their jobs with quality and cost savings. Their doctors are salaried doctors and not paid by procedure. They use less expensive procedures first, have the patient’s history and actually read it ahead of time, use a doctors’ networking team approach to get it right (therer is less competition as far as who gets to do the procedure to make the money. This reduces cost, avoids mistakes, gives more quality health care and allows them time with the patient, not get it done and hurry to the next procedure to get paid. My mom actually fired her cardiac surgeon for this reason. He didn’t talk to her. Doesn’t this make sense?
My oncologist actually performed in the same way in that he started out with the less expensive and less invasive procedures first and the worked up to a more expensive procedure. I had health insurance at that time and he still did it that way. We then collaborated on the process and he wrote up in the medical journal.
The other problem is with the insurance companies. Stay tuned!
Tags: insurance, Mayo Clinic, natural products
