Blog Post

Doctors Should Give a Satisfaction Guarantee

Tuesday, August 21, 2007. 12:53 pm. Posted by Josh.

A while back I griped about the lack of free market competition in the medical industry. Well, it occurred to me the other day that this goes ever further than I originally posted about.

Not only do doctors like to recommend and perform procedures without giving us the option to "shop around", but they often get paid for not doing anything at all? Have you ever gone to the doctor with a problem that the doctor did not resolve? You still had to pay full price for your visit/procedure/operation didn't you? How about you've gone to the doctor with an ailment and they couldn't even diagnose it? Or they keep telling you what they think it is, but they must be wrong because the cures for those things aren't working?

I think perhaps it's time that doctors started offering satisfaction guarantees. If they can't fix you or figure out what's wrong with you, you shouldn't have to pay full price. Maybe a discounted rate would be available. Even the cheapest discount stores offer some sort of satisfaction guarantee (even if it is just a return policy).

One of the big political issues for the next election appears to be the rising costs of health care for normal Americans. Well, perhaps if we start running the medical industry as a business where we are the customers and the "customer is always right", perhaps costs would go down. Perhaps doctors would realize they no longer have the right to charge us for incomplete solutions. They'd probably work a little harder to resolve our issues in a timely manner because it would mean happy customers. Now, the incentive just doesn't seem to be there.

Posted in: Business , Gripes , Politics
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Comments: 2

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Wednesday, August 22, 2007. 11:39 am. Posted by zbreits.

I do understand why you should still have to pay a doctor, even if they cant fix you. sometimes it is simply out of their hands, but if they take time and use there facilities to try, they still deserve to be paid.
However, if the doctor gives you a wrong diagnosis, then I feel they have no right to collect payment. And apparently, they agree with me. Recently, i was charged over $2000 for an ER visit, were some dumby doctor administered some anti-biotics (the cure for everything these days) and sent me on my way. The next day, a specialist told me how wrong the doctor's diagnosis was.
So i wrote a dispute letter to the hospital, did a little comlaining, and eventually they dropped all charges. Kinda like a money back guarentee. From my experinece, I learned that it is possible to negotiate with doctors bills, and at the very least have them itemize the cost, so that you can see why some anti-biotics can cost $2000.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007. 1:04 pm. Posted by Josh.

Sounds like you have had some luck with the medical industry. In my experience, there is usually so much red tape that it takes forever to get anything resolved (if it ever DOES get resolved).

Assuming a good doctor explained to you why he wanted to attempt a certain procedure/cure, and the probability that it wouldn't work, then perhaps they should be paid.

But if you are given a mis-diagnosis or a non-diagnosis, or if they attempt to fix something without finding the root cuase (and end up fixing nothing), I don't think the consumer should be stuck with the whole bill.

I think doctors are mostly guessing anyway.

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