3 ms·

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

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 drink alcohol safely) then yeah, I'll be annoyed if I get a $25 fee. But typing out responses to question might take my doctor 30 minutes, so it's fair if they charge me, so long as I get a good answer in a reasonable timeframe. Obviously there's exceptions. If it's a brain surgeon who just made $25,000 on a single procedure and I have a 15 minute followup question, it seems a little nervy to bill me $25 more, but not if I'm emailing my kid's pediatrician a picture of a rash.

burkaman 3y ago
Several issues with your analogy: 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.
unsupp0rted 3y ago
You've painted a picture in which doctors charge for time. This is (or should be) incongruous with what a doctor is for. Doctors charge for identifying and telling you things non-doctors can't, with a high degree of non-harm-doing. They've already put in the 10,000 hours to know which bolt to turn.
- chadash 3y ago
  Doctors very much charge for time. By definition, their work doesn't scale. But because of their immense training, they get to charge _a lot_ for that time. The same is true in law. Just because you have 10,000 hours of training doesn't mean you aren't billing by the hour. This is why there are many many doctor and attorney millionaires and very few doctor/attorney billionaires.
627467 3y ago
> occasional Well, it would be occasional for you to ask questions to your doctor, but your doctor wouldn't be just occasionally answering questions from their patients > Non-urgent questions Imagine everyone sending non-urgent questions... Isn't it even more irritating to be receiving non-urgent questions than urgent ones if you're a doctor? I guess the doctor could reply with a FAQ. Honestly, this is where I think personal LLMs should come to the rescue. Just ask a doctor-sanctioned/fine-tuned LLM for trivial questions.
deleted 3y ago
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burkaman 3y ago

Several issues with your analogy: 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.

unsupp0rted 3y ago

You've painted a picture in which doctors charge for time. This is (or should be) incongruous with what a doctor is for. Doctors charge for identifying and telling you things non-doctors can't, with a high degree of non-harm-doing. They've already put in the 10,000 hours to know which bolt to turn.

chadash 3y ago
Doctors very much charge for time. By definition, their work doesn't scale. But because of their immense training, they get to charge _a lot_ for that time. The same is true in law. Just because you have 10,000 hours of training doesn't mean you aren't billing by the hour. This is why there are many many doctor and attorney millionaires and very few doctor/attorney billionaires.

627467 3y ago

> occasional Well, it would be occasional for you to ask questions to your doctor, but your doctor wouldn't be just occasionally answering questions from their patients > Non-urgent questions Imagine everyone sending non-urgent questions... Isn't it even more irritating to be receiving non-urgent questions than urgent ones if you're a doctor? I guess the doctor could reply with a FAQ. Honestly, this is where I think personal LLMs should come to the rescue. Just ask a doctor-sanctioned/fine-tuned LLM for trivial questions.

deleted 3y ago

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