Welcome to our blog!
The aim of HowMuchDoc.com is to make affordable healthcare available to the growing number of folks without insurance. With the help of compassionate, caring health care providers, we hope to help keep our country healthy despite the growing costs of insurance.
Feel free to post your comments on any successful efforts you’ve made as a practitioner to provide affordable healthcare to those without health insurance.
OK. I’m the guy. I’m the doctor behind this web site. I work in a semi-rural town that has a high unemployment rate. As a result, we have a lot of uninsured folks in our town. And if you’re uninsured, you just plain don’t go to the doctor.
So my question is this; is this the best that we can do in this country? Isn’t there a better way to enable everyone to have access to health care? Health care isn’t free, but if you pay your way, shouldn’t you get a break.
This web site is one small effort to get care to folks who need it.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Jeff
Comment by Jeff — August 2, 2006 @ 9:14 pm
Today was the third time in three months that my surgery center called and informed me that a patient’s insurance would not pay for an implant that I need in a proposed surgery. However, if this procedure was performed in a hospital, that implant would likely be paid by the patient’s insurance.
In each case, I present the facts to the patient who is sure that there must be some problem with the surgery center that I use. They leave the office angry, never to be seen again.
So, to do this case in a surgery center will mean that the facility actually looses money on the case. That’s the way the system currently works. There is pending legislation to change this with Medicare patients, but until 2008 when that legislation may/may not pass, that’s the way the system works.
Jeff
Comment by Jeff — August 4, 2006 @ 5:41 pm
Physician compensation has consistently decreased over the past several years. Individual insurance premiums are up and payment to providers is down. Medicare is projecting a 35% decrease in payments to physicians over 7 years.
And yet this article indicates that things are pretty rosy for health care execs.
Jeff
Comment by Jeff — August 5, 2006 @ 4:05 pm