That is bizarre. Never heard of such a thing. My father is a physician and he owns his own practice. It's not a large practice -- just him and a handful of employees. Yes, he constantly has problems with getting insurances to pay him. But this is nothing new. It's been a problem for many years -- essentially for as long as I can remember, and I'm 26 yrs old. And yes, when insurance companies do eventually reimburse the doctors, they are indeed paying less than they used to -- but again, not really new. My father's practice has been feeling the affects of insurance cutbacks for many years. And money is always tight (doctors don't make nearly as much as you think, or at least not general practitioners...they probably put in the most work for the least amount of pay). There hasn't been any sudden, large loss of income (it's been building up over the years).
I can understand the doctor charging some small fee for having to do a ton of extra/special paperwork for insurance appeals, disability, etc as that really does take a lot of time for them to do & is a pain in the butt (my father doesn't charge for paperwork, but I do know of doctors in the community who do). And I can also understand charging a patient a few cents a page to copy their complete records, as some charts can be huge and it takes time and money to pull [potentially multiple volumes of] records and make copes of everything -- this additional fee is something that seems to be quite common, from my experience. But charging an "administrative fee?!" That makes no sense to me.
It's not like the doctor has had to hire a bunch of new employees to suddenly do all this new "administrative work" for each patient in the office. Maybe they've had to hire one new employee, or pay someone overtime, but there shouldn't be any great need for a huge staffing change. Yes, Obamacare and other changes in governmental requirements/regulations have created some additional paperwork and changes in regards to how electronic records are kept, etc -- don't ask me to go into it. I don't know all the details, only what I hear from my father & that's just bits and pieces. But administrative work has always been a part of running a medical practice. And so having staff whose sole function is to do this work has always been necessary. Yes, their administrative duties might change slightly as electronic records evolve, etc. But to charge someone extra for something that has been crucial to the operation of the practice since day one just seems odd. $36 isn't a whole lot of money, but I suppose it could add up if the doctor had a lot of patients...
I don't know what to tell you. I don't know or understand what this is all about
. It may be that the doctor is being dishonest and is just trying to bring in more pure profit. I'd hate to think that he is scamming his patients, as it is not only not professional, but it is not ethical. But it's sad to say that there are people out there who have no morals and do things like this all the time. Or it may in fact be due to the doctor having to hire additional staff to haggle with insurances, do paperwork, transition electronic records, etc. Or it could be something else entirely. It is hard to know as an outsider/without knowing how the practice operates, what new rules and regulations are being imposed on them, what their overhead is, and how much insurance has cut back on payments, etc. But if it is a doctor that you and your wife are happy with and trust, then I would probably just pay the $36 and let it go.
Skeye
Post Edited (skeye) : 3/14/2014 11:04:07 PM (GMT-6)