3 ms·

I hear this repeated a lot but it’s not necessarily true. I had an experience with a doctor who was supposedly so prestigious that she didn’t accept insurance.

I hear this repeated a lot but it’s not necessarily true. I had an experience with a doctor who was supposedly so prestigious that she didn’t accept insurance. I ended up going to two appointments where she did nothing but push for redoing some tests in her expensive laboratory at a cost of $5000. She couldn’t explain why her lab was different and eventually admitted that they used the exact same equipment as my previous (insurance-covered) test. When I declined and tried to leave she offered me the “discount” of $1000 off for new patients. It was really just one big push to funnel people through her expensive lab combined with a fancy office and nice bedside manner. Don’t assume that just because someone is outside of the insurance system they’re going to provide superior care.

hammock 4y ago
You got scammed. Sounds like you know that. I’ve seen functional medicine docs like this too, it’s a part of their business model to sell you overpriced supplements that they get kickbacks from. Just because they don’t take insurance doesn’t mean they don’t have their own ethical sketchiness. However, just because there are bad non-insurance docs out there doesnt mean there aren’t excellent, ethical ones of the type OP described.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  Yup. Dermatologists are big into this too. My wife gets to visit them a lot due to a skin cancer episode, and her former practice was swallowed up by some private equity dermatology group. I learned about their operations via a case study published one of their vendors - a commission/incentive management software platform. Up to 70% of provider pay is about pushing magic goop for your face.
gumby 4y ago
> a doctor who was supposedly so prestigious that she didn’t accept insurance. It seems like there's a problem right up front: prestige. My main doctor doesn't accept insurance though she will give you a form with the diagnosis codes marked if you want to submit it yourself. She simply doesn't want to deal with the paperwork. There's none of the fancy "concierge" and "membership" bullshit, much less "prestige". She just has an ordinary doctor's office, and doesn't own a lab or anything. But in exchange for filing the insurance form if I remember to: the longest I've had to wait to see her when I was sick was a couple of hours, I can bring my dog with me to my visits, and she and I pass scientific papers back and forth when determining treatment. But the main advantages of "no insurance" are that we have lots of time for a visit (if needed) and nobody looking over her shoulder for prior auth or such. It's a much more collaborative model. Unfortunately I don't think this model scales, but my exposure to the more formula-driven mass medical system has been discouraging.
- kyleee 4y ago
  why do you bring your dog to a doctor visit?
  - gumby 4y ago
    Why would I not? He attends board meetings, restaurants (when I sit outside) and is with me pretty much 24 hours a day. He use to go into the office back when I did that.
lupire 4y ago
That doc is maybe overpriced, but, if price is no object, which is the topic of this thread, then that's not a problem.

hammock 4y ago

You got scammed. Sounds like you know that. I’ve seen functional medicine docs like this too, it’s a part of their business model to sell you overpriced supplements that they get kickbacks from. Just because they don’t take insurance doesn’t mean they don’t have their own ethical sketchiness. However, just because there are bad non-insurance docs out there doesnt mean there aren’t excellent, ethical ones of the type OP described.

Spooky23 4y ago
Yup. Dermatologists are big into this too. My wife gets to visit them a lot due to a skin cancer episode, and her former practice was swallowed up by some private equity dermatology group. I learned about their operations via a case study published one of their vendors - a commission/incentive management software platform. Up to 70% of provider pay is about pushing magic goop for your face.

gumby 4y ago

> a doctor who was supposedly so prestigious that she didn’t accept insurance. It seems like there's a problem right up front: prestige. My main doctor doesn't accept insurance though she will give you a form with the diagnosis codes marked if you want to submit it yourself. She simply doesn't want to deal with the paperwork. There's none of the fancy "concierge" and "membership" bullshit, much less "prestige". She just has an ordinary doctor's office, and doesn't own a lab or anything. But in exchange for filing the insurance form if I remember to: the longest I've had to wait to see her when I was sick was a couple of hours, I can bring my dog with me to my visits, and she and I pass scientific papers back and forth when determining treatment. But the main advantages of "no insurance" are that we have lots of time for a visit (if needed) and nobody looking over her shoulder for prior auth or such. It's a much more collaborative model. Unfortunately I don't think this model scales, but my exposure to the more formula-driven mass medical system has been discouraging.

kyleee 4y ago
why do you bring your dog to a doctor visit?
- gumby 4y ago
  Why would I not? He attends board meetings, restaurants (when I sit outside) and is with me pretty much 24 hours a day. He use to go into the office back when I did that.

lupire 4y ago

That doc is maybe overpriced, but, if price is no object, which is the topic of this thread, then that's not a problem.