Service of When to Charge
February 25th, 2013
Categories: Bargain, Medical Care, Vet
Wait a Minute Doc!
A friend had a very bad reaction to an injection so she returned to the doctor’s office. Her arm hurt so badly she couldn’t lift it, she felt weak and dizzy and ended up missing two days of work.
She learned that she was to have this inoculation once every five years and she just had one last year.
There’s a hefty co-pay on her insurance plan so when a bill for $92 came for the second visit, she called the doctor’s office to say she didn’t plan to pay it. She explained that had it not been for the office’s mistake—nobody had checked her chart before calling her to come in for the shot and at the time she didn’t know that this was not a yearly precaution like a flu shot—she wouldn’t have had to come back to check out the side effects.
The takeaway: It’s up to you now. Before getting an innoculation, check online or with someone to confirm it’s an annual event.
Arf, Meow
Another friend took her pet to the vet and part of the checkup was extensive [expensive] blood work. She got the results and one was missing though she’d been charged and had paid for it. She had to go back with her pet and hoped that she wouldn’t get another bill for the doctor’s time. I can’t imagine she would. [Patients are never reimbursed for their time.]
The takeaway: Don’t just read the top line when reviewing blood test results. Make sure you see the results for each test you paid for.
Juicy Fruit
I stop by a street fruit and vegetable vendor on my way home from work at least three times a week. The quality is tops, the prices low to rock bottom and inevitably, when I buy a few things—four oranges, tiny sweet tomatoes in an attractive display, a couple of boxes of blueberries for example—he always knocks down the total by a few dollars. I ask for two potatoes and there are four, no extra charge. It’s quite fun to buy from him as I never know what the surprise will be.
The takeaway: If you are lucky, you find a vendor like this.
Do you have examples of when you’ve felt inappropriately charged or when a person has given you a welcome if undeserved price break?
In this profit-driven world, I had far too many bad experiences with people big and small selling me things to wish to dwell upon them. Therefore, I will write about a happy one.
Years ago, I had a hernia (actually, I still have it.), and while it didn’t bother me or hurt, I worrried about it. Eventually my doctor sent me to a fancy specialist, known as “Dr. Hernia,” with his office in a fancy East Side hospital. Dr. Hernia took one careful but relatively quick look, explained what I had and said, “Do nothing, now or anytine soon. There’s no need.”
He followed me on the out of his office, and at her desk, I asked his nurse for the bill for his examination. She said that there wasn’t one. He overheard and said, “No cutee, no chargee.” Everybody laughed.
I recently signed up to have a surgical procedure conducted at the Hospital for Joint Diseases in New York City. My surgeon’s “manager” said I would need the concurrence of two physicians, each of whom would have to attest that I was “okay for surgery.” The paperwork they submitted—by a certain date—would have to include reports of a series of blood & urine tests.
The paperwork was submitted and I was told to report to the hospital for a “pre-op” exam. . . which turned out to involve 3 1/2 hours of mostly waiting to be seen. An “assistant surgeon” then interrogated me, laboriously writing my answers on a blank sheet of paper.
“I’m in your hospital’s system,” I told him. He said no, it was a different system and continued to ask me my name, birthday, address, age—basic questions. Thirty minutes after he left me, a nurse came in and starting asking the same questions. When I told her I was in the system, she was delighted and found my records instantly. Then she spent the next 45 minutes laboriously confirming every item on my record, including, “Do you take Vitamin B6. . . When was the last time you took it.”
When she was about to leave she said someone would come in to take blood samples. “I’ve already had blood samples drawn or I couldn’t have come here today.” She said the anesthesiologist preferred having her own samples, then handed me a cup and directed to a restroom. After another long wait, the anesthesiologist summoned me and asked most of the same questions I’d already been asked. “Will you be with me in the operating room?” No, she said. That would be someone else.
By the time I left that hospital I felt like a POW being questioned about state secrets. I was drained. And I vowed that I would not have my procedure at the institution. . . and I won’t.
Jean P,
My mother had a similar experience. She went to a back specialist who determined she had a hip issue, and no trouble with her back, and recommended some hip surgeons. As she was getting her clothes back on my dad asked the doctor what they owed for the visit. “Nothing,” said the doctor, “I didn’t do anything.” Even under protest that they’d taken up his time, he did not accept a cent.
Merv,
When my husband was in the hospital with an unknown disease he went through a similar drill. He was so weak he could hardly speak, had been living with 103 fever for months and had to repeat the answers to a long list of questions, all the same. I can’t imagine why one doctor didn’t look up the basics that the others had noted. It was torture–your reference to feeling like a POW quite apt.
I recently accompanied my husband to his pulmonologist and among the procedures he did one was to give my husband a flu shot. I said, as long as I’m here, won’t you give me a shot also, which he did. On our way out he told his receptionist to open a file for me. When the report came to us, I was charged for all the procedures he would have normally given to a new patient amounting to over $500. That’s known as taking advantage of a good thing!!!!
Curious, I just had exactly the same experience with an opthalmic surgeon who got an anomalous result and therefore thought that i had some condition or other and asked me to come back three months later. She also gave me a new prescription so I had to go out and buy a new and stylish pair of progressive glasses at nearly fifty bucks! WHen the prescription didnt seem right, I went back on the next occasion and the doc apologised for the mistake in the prior anomalous result. But no one questioned that I still got stuck with both bills as well as that for the glasses.
But on the subject of charging, I had a better experience about which I am still arguing with colleagues as to who was right: I did a few thousand dollars worth of work for a client from whom someone was trying fraudulently to extort money. Though petrified of litigation, he didnt like the letter I drafted and insisted on my using a letter he drafted himself. Everyone says I should have charged him the few thousand but I sent him a bill for $500. I reckon you can’t (it is not morally right to?) charge a guy for work of which he doesnt approve.
HOWEVER: His letter didnt work and we ended up using an expanded version of my letter which (much as I suspected) nailed the issue and killed it stone dead. He then very gratefully paid my whole expanded bill!
Wow, Claire, things haven’t changed.
My great aunt, who lived to be 93, [she died in the 1980s] had pacemakers that needed rejiggering every few years. She decided she didn’t care for the hospital her doctor was associated with, where the procedure was done, so she made a switch after explaining carefully why.
She hadn’t even received a phone call to see how she was from either him or a member of his staff when she received confirmation from Medicare of a bill from the doctor she’d left. She called to speak with the nurse who said, “Oh, come on, it doesn’t cost you anything.” No doubt the doctor was counting on the advanced age of the woman not to notice, but that wasn’t like my eagle-eyed aunt. And she lodged an official complaint.
DManzaluni,
My lawyer charged $X for a project and asked for a retainer of half. When the project was over, I told him I’d send the second amount and he said, “It took much less time than I’d anticipated, so you don’t owe me any more.” He or his firm eventually received business from family and friends amounting to far more than the part I didn’t pay. This man was not a personal friend. I will never forget him.
I’m in a business where results are less clear than winning or losing a case or completing a project such as a real estate transaction or divorce. I can make no promises–though a lawyer can’t be sure to win a case, come to think of it. At times I worry that results are not what they should be even though I have done everything under the sun to make them great. Some clients are happy at the recognized efforts. Other times, results are spectacular and the client doesn’t realize it no matter who points out the benefits.
I’m sure that some who buy great oranges, blueberries and tomatoes from the fruit/vegetable stand at amazing prices have plenty of complaints as well. That’s business.
A cardinal rule: do NOT nickel and dime anyone. That, along with graciousness as shown by above examples are sure winners, and apply to all situations, business or no. Go save that extra dollar if you don’t care about busting up a friendship or losing a customer – but the cost will exceed the envisioned savings many times over.
Lucrezia,
So true: The old saw about being easier to keep a client than to find a new one is close, unless a person is an expert at “there’s a fool born every day,” and can lie and overstate like nobody else in which case they–and I’ve confronted a few over the years–do best of all.
As a teacher, I am often asked for tutoring. However, I refuse to charge for it unless it is an unusual case when I must go to the student’s house in time that would ordinarily be mine. Otherwise the student and I find time to meet during school hours (7 AM – 9:00 PM). It seems to me that the students already pay a great deal to attend our school. To charge extra for one-on-one work does not make sense.
Another story, about a dentist.
I went to have a crown replaced. All was well, except that it came off in about one or two days. So I went back and asked if he would try again. He did, and after it was done, I hung around the desk to pay for the time he had taken. He came out of his office and saw me there and asked if everything was OK. I said I was just waiting to pay. He said “there is no charge, of course.” I was, as you can imagine, pleased and thanked him heartily. By the way, the crown stayed on.
Rhona,
You must have a line around the block for tutoring! My parents paid dearly for Latin tutoring, at the school, by the teacher, in her classroom. [She didn't have to walk one inch.]
To think you are at the school all those hours! WHEW!
My dentist charges by the procedure. So if a cap came off 5 times, I wouldn’t pay [and hopefully wouldn't lose the thing for then I'd no doubt pay for the replacement.]
What is interesting is when the tutoring is built into the school “day” as it were, parents are less anxious about it and students come as they need to, not as their anxious parents require. It puts a very different spin on the tutoring business. I love working one-on-one with students and am always glad when students show up for assistance. I like particularly that it is the student’s choice.
Rhona,
You are obviously a dedicated teacher.
Hooray for the students smart enough to go directly to you–a reward for all.