Wednesday, August 15, 2012

What Would You Do?



 A specialist I see charges $50 if a drugstore calls for a refill authorization and $10 if  I e-mail her about anything.  She insists on keeping patients' credit card numbers on file, and she charges your card immediately if a drugstore contacts her.  Which happened on Monday due to drugstore error, and I got a receipt (not a bill) from her yesterday for $50.

She's in a medical specialty in which there are very few good doctors in our HMO/Preferred Provider Plan, and my required new-patient appointment with her cost a lot of money.  If I switch to another doctor, I may have to pay a similar exorbitant fee.

I could limp along in this pretty much trust-free doctor/patient relationship, or I could contact another doctor, see if I like him/her (and the fees),  try another, and perhaps another.

This kept me awake last night. 


2 comments:

Ann said...

The $50.00 for the pharmacy refill is unprecedented; I’ve never experienced anything like it. The email thing sounds less expensive than a legal consult, but still unusual for an M.D. This sounds like a New Age, young Dr. trying to offset the cost of his/her tony office space.

LizR said...

Office space is pretty nice, but also a kid in private school, secretary/office, and the doctor is a single mom.