Buyer Beware

Sometimes, when I'm at a social gathering, and people find out what I do for a living, I will often hear the complaint that doctors' offices are out to take patients for everything they're worth. What people fail to understand, is the job of being informed about cost and coverage is ultimately the patient's responsibility.

There's a wonderful guest post about this on insureblog.blogspot.com, where Office Manager Kelley A. Beloff puts an article about medical costs from USA Today into perspective. For instance, she cites the example of someone making an appointment for, say, a regular check-up, and then prior to the appointment the patient breaks their ankle. It makes sense that there are going to be further costs incurred by the visit as a result of this added complication, but you'd be surprised at how often a patient fails to understand this. To them, it's one size fits all!

She goes on to talk about Medicare vs. Medicare HMO, and how patients often have no clue about the nature of their coverage, or if they change it, what that entails. Her final paragraph deserves to be reprinted here in full:

"What this article tiptoes around, but what I tell my patients, is that the patient is responsible for all the aspects of their own health care. This means understanding the insurance policy prior to signing anything, knowing if your doctor is in-network or out-of-network (i.e. takes your insurance or does not take your insurance) and finally, you the patient are ultimately responsible for all health care costs incurred by you."

Amen! I make it a point to explain things to my patients, too, but it's like talking to your spouse. In one ear and out the other, and if you're lucky, they get half of what you're trying to tell them. I realize it's hard to navigate health care in this day and age, and people have a lot of things on their minds, but they need to understand that while we in the medical office profession are there to help them, we are just as obligated to insurance companies and rising medical costs.

Just as a good patient eats right, and exercises to maintain their health, they should also educate themselves on the technical details of their healthcare. It's every bit as important.