"The Wolfe"

iamboz:

…

Give me a bit…I’m working on this issue— designing the ideal health experience— right now as a matter of fact!

But the real issue here is that YOU are not the doctor’s customer. Customers are people who purchase goods and/or services. So if you used your insurance today to pay for…

c’mon Doc, that’s kind of a shitty answer. Actually, it’s pretty much bullshit. I mean I know you’re maybe trying to be brutally honest, but you used only half of the definition. The convenient (for you)half. Actually a customer is also someone who receives a service or goods.

Tell me if I’m wrong here, but most people with insurance pay a co-pay—after already having a deduction taken from their paycheck—when signing in or exiting the office, right? When you say/write, “And that’s why doctor’s offices typically have receptionists who don’t care that much about being nice to you. They don’t really have to be nice to you.”, you and every other doctor who thinks this should be ashamed. If you don’t want to offer a customer—and believe me, every patient who walks in a medical office is in fact a customer in some form or fashion—then you are just as “corrupt” as the insurance companies are perceived to be.

For example, after the Medicare cuts were passed, my folks were told they would need to pay a $50 admin. fee so that their Doctor could continue to provide the same services, in the same timely fashion, to them as before the cuts. That made them a customer who deserved a person at the window or desk offering them some form of customer service, especially when considering their doctor was specifically charging them for “better” service.

I do some consulting in the Medical field, so I know the issues everyone faces, both doctors & patients alike, so I apologize if this comes off as unduly harsh…actually, since no one is paying me to read this, I don’t have to be nice, right?