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What are some specialties that allow you to establish private practice and charge cash for service? I have heard cosmetic surgery and concierge medicine...are there other ones out there?
In reality the najority of cash docs are the cadre of semi licensed, non boarded docs
In reality the najority of cash docs are the cadre of semi licensed, non boarded docs who shill botox, weight loss programs and hair restoration stuff. Those guys are all cash based which is good because they are probably banned from CMS anyway.
The guys who have to base their license status on when the disciplinary committee of the medical board meets.What exactly is a 'semi-licensed' doc?
Just wondering.
Lots of docs and other providers from various specialties do it. Should they be doing it? Hard to say.Aside from Plastics and Derm, I thought FP, OB/GYN and enterprising RNs did alot of this stuff.
What about integrative medicine? People have been talking about anti-aging clinic, acupuncture, foot massage and things like that...How lucrative is that?
if you're interested in those, then you really don't need to be a physician. you could become a podiatrist, work for revlon, or get licensed as an acupunturist.
if you want to do those things as an MD to lend some credence to those "therapies", then i would say that you would be wasting many years of your life.
They're interested in making money obviously, that's the point of the thread.
We saw a pedi neurologist for a while who was on a cash basis. He was in solo practice and got ticked because the insurance companies were holding out on paying upwards of $40K they owed him, so he went straight cash. Of course, he was also the only one in town, but most of the docs started referring to the one in the next big town over instead, so I don't know that it was such a great move. As a parent, it was pretty hard to squeeze out the $240 for the visit, although we could file under insurance and get reimbursed for it, it was a hassle that most patients won't assume.
I don't know why you wouldn't consider $240 to be enough money to cause someone some financial uneasiness. For the vast majority of pateints I see in the ER $240 cash is out of the question. Back when I was a student and a resident $240 would have been painful.I find it hard to believe that you could not squeeze out 240 dollars for a doctors visit. Your monthly insurance premiums are most likely that much.
The so called Dental Insurance is not really insurance. It is just a way to get dentist to reduce their fees to lower fees. You can get that from them if you just ask.
So, there is no such thing as dental insurance in the real sense.
I don't know why you wouldn't consider $240 to be enough money to cause someone some financial uneasiness. For the vast majority of pateints I see in the ER $240 cash is out of the question. Back when I was a student and a resident $240 would have been painful.
Am I misreading the population, or is there big money voodoo afoot?
(value is in the eye of the beholder.)
So pay the insurance premium AND squeeze in the $240 for the office visit AND AGAIN for the next visit 3 weeks later? On our budget at the time, that was tough, and I wasn't a student at the time! I was working full time as an RN - getting pretty decent insurance coverage. But, most people don't have that kind of money sitting around to fork over right away. At my pay rate at the time - it would have been a little more than 1/3 of my weekly pay.
Many of the patients I see now are having trouble coming up with $10 copay for their prescriptions. To suggest they have that much money lying around isn't realistic.
I have dental insurance and I pay nothing for my twice a year routine cleanings. I had a couple fillings put in last year for which I paid $80. I find it hard to believe that I could get free cleanings twice a year and $80 fillings were it not for my insurance. BTW, I don't disagree with you regarding what should and shouldn't be covered by insurance, I am just pointing out that actual dental insurance does exist.
I don't think they are having trouble coming up with the 10 dollar copay. I think they don't like to pay it.
You know that big screen TV and that x box and the other toys, thats where they want to spend it. It is about priorities.
These people I'm talking about aren't going out buying that stuff. These are folks that take 4-6 buses to get to clinic and are really trying to make ends meet. The system won't change - we had catastrophic coverage for my first 2 years of med school. It worked okay until we had a medical problem in one of the kids that needed an ER visit, xrays and CT scans. I can fork over $75 for an office visit that I've got planned in, but suddenly getting hit with a huge bill is tough. And my husband is an accountant - he can move money around with the best of them. But if it's not there, its not there. And - we were paying MORE for the catastrophic coverage than we were for the total HMO coverage we had while I was working for the hospital. So how does that work into your equation?
I think a world without insurance is like communism. Perhaps good in theory, but doesn't work in practice.
Thats a big stretch. Communism?
I wish people would read the whole post before placing a post. I never said NO INSURANCE, I did say limited coverage for the right things.
No - I'm not in practice yet - still a MS4. But I don't see what you propose as working until double coverage isn't needed. If you have to pay as much for the catastrophic/hospital only coverage and have enough set aside to pay for the cash only office visits - it's too much for most families. So, if you are single or have really healthy kids, that's great - go cash for visits. But, if you have a special needs kid like I do - it's not so easy to say I'll just pay cash for everything but needing to be hospitalized.
So, you go cash only... are you going to post your prices for office visits, shots, etc outside in your waiting room like McDonalds? How do patients plan for expenses if they don't know what you are charging?
The HMO coverage I spoke of was self-funded by the hospital - no outside HMO companies involved. It was good coverage that didn't break the bank.
Problem is - I've never seen the prices up on the wall. And the dentist does care that my kid has special needs - they won't see him without him being put to sleep because they are scared of him because he wiggles and makes a lot more noise than most kids. So the dentist puts my son to sleep to do his teeth... which requires more $$$ and health insurance.
I agree with you in principle that the insurance companies are a PITA, and they do whatever they can to make $. But, I don't think a doc here and there not taking insurance will make a difference in the big scheme of things. It's nice to talk about Utopia, but I don't see it changing the world. I do think it's great to post prices for cash payments up front - then you may be able to convince more people that it's the way to go. In my future practice - it will be rather impractical to do only cash - since I'll be an ob/gyn. Reimbursement for prenatal care/delivery stinks as it is; but I don't need my patients deciding whether that $75 should go for a prenatal care visit or for groceries.
I think a cash only service makes medical care a discretionary commodity - which is the opposite of most preventive care minded physicians. How do you get someone to come in for an annual exam that they don't really want to have anyways if you're really going to hit them hard in their checkbook?
You misunderstood. What I meant was, the idea of no insurance is similar to the idea of communism in that both have theoretical appeal (in communism this would be economic equality), while in practice they appear flawed.
~$120/hr is a fair guess across the country. The average patient per hour is more like 2 to 2.5 depending on the acuity. You are really shooting for more of a payment of $120-140 per pateint per visit. You get nothing from the majority of the uninsured. So it all comes down to payor mix. if your uninsured percent is ~20% you'll make a lot more than the guy who sees 40% uninsured. For demonstration purposes you 2.5 patients per hour and 20% are no pays you'll getHow do EPs make it?
I'm figuring you pull a minimum 200k gross. You work probably 12-14 ~10hr shifts a month. The lazy math says you should be yankin' down ~$120 an hour.
At ~3 pts/hr that's about $40 a piece. I am not seeing the standard denizens of the ED as willing payors of even that much money.
Am I misreading the population, or is there big money voodoo afoot?
So they don't come in for prenatal care - become a train-wreck uncontrolled diabetic, preeclamptic (or ecclamptic) who comes in when I'm on call and sues me when their baby doesn't come out perfect? I'd rather see more people getting care rather than less - which would happen if everything went to cash pay.
Back to the original post... there was a letter in the Texas medicine journal from an ER trained doc who runs a cash only practice outside of Dallas. It says he doesn't take appointments, either. Not sure how that works.
while i sympathize with your fear of litigation, it really isn't a justification for our current system. if it were, then we would never charge anyone for anything because we would want them to always come to the doctor whenever anything went wrong so that we could do a million dollar work-up to make sure we never got sued.
i'm with you on this one, erichaj 👍 but tiredmom is definitely right insofar as your system will never be implemented.