Healthcare Without Insurance - Direct Billing

David Trammel's picture

File this under the changes that Healthcare is making as it recognizes Collapse.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/25/health-policy-expert-what-went-wrong-with-ryancare-conservatives-were-never-really-welcomed-to-weigh-in-video/?google_editors_picks=true

Its not so much what the "expert", Twila Brase has to say about the recent Trumpcare fiasco, but follow her link to "Wedge of Freedom" network.

https://jointhewedge.com/

It seems that she and others are relearning old fashioned healthcare. The kind that you knew upfront what it would cost you, and could budget accordingly. Kind of what Greer described was the situation back in the early 20th and late 19th century, where fraternal organizations contracted with doctors much like they did other trades persons, like plumbers and carpenters, to provide their services for a fee to the members of that organization.

I will say from recent experience, the urgent care service which provides emergency healthcare if we get injured at work, has a similar posted pricing schedule, for people either without insurance or who have sky high deductibles, so that you have an isea of what its going to cost you before you see the doctor.

I have a friend whose company works in healthcare policy and business practices, and the one area he is guaranteed to talk for hours on, is how screwed up that field is.

(ADMIN NOTE: Two threads merged, that's why the older replies.)

Call me a romantic, but I don't think healthcare should have a political agenda. The Wedge website looks like ideological whooey to me. Here is this article in direct primary care:

The rise of direct primary care

Internist Ben Fisher, MD, made a dramatic move recently: he opened his own direct primary care practice. Fischer treated patients for eight years as part of a 30-physician group practice in Raleigh, North Carolina. He had no disagreements with his group, but he was tired of the fee-for-service model. It forced him to spend time on cost containment for insurance companies that would be better invested in caring for patients. “I felt a very clear sense that the work I was doing was not the work of my calling,” says Fischer, who completed his residency in 2003. “It was the work of the insurers.” Fischer continues to work at his original practice while opening the new one, and with his wife Liz, an MBA, helping him navigate the details of setting up a practice, he feels off to a good start. “This is very much a leap of faith,” he says Fischer is among a growing number of physicians nationwide to transition from fee-for-service medicine, or open a new practice based on what was once considered an “alternative” practice model.

Not that it changes the message any, but Twila Brase and I were college classmates at the small Minnesota school that we attended, and we even lived in the same small co-ed dormitory in our first year. She sounds the same as she did then, and even has the same permanent facial smile. Twila quickly became a vocal leader in the state's nursing and healthcare industry soon after college, and so I am not surprised that she is involved here and now.

Kevin Anderson

The specialists are still getting big bucks, but from what I can tell, many docs have become employees and the docs in my system are paid on RTM - relevant time module (okay - I'm making that up, but it's a very similar acronym that I've forgotten for the moment)- in other words, their pay is based on whatever vague description the company tells them it's based on! Not on hours, or procedures - but on some kind of subjective merit scale - no wonder the docs give me 10-15 minutes and are typing furiously as I talk! And they lie on the forms; I've gotten into the habit of asking for copies of all my chart notes and the docs are saying we reviewed things that we definitely didn't talk about!! But which are required, of course. It's disgusting but I can't really blame the docs - it's a rigged system and the execs are the only ones benefitting. In fact, if you will indulge me, here is my version of "One Toke Over the Line" (if you don't know the song - OMG- look it up on YouTube):

"One fix under the line, Sweet Jesus, one fix under the line;
your ICD codes don't match our DMAP services; one fix under the line.
Waiting for the pain to go down, Sweet Mary; hope I took the pain meds on time;
'cause you can't get help in this hierarchy; one fix under the line.

oooh, do ya hurt - I know I do; the system's changing, and you know it's true;
the beancounters won, they got great big salaries, and they think it's fine;
but that leaves the rest of us stuck below the line, and now I'm
one fix under the line, Sweet Jesus, one fix under the line;
twiddling my thumbs in the doctor's office; I'm sick but I'm under the line....

(It came from a letter I got that actually said my ICD codes didn't match their DMAP services and thus I was "under the line" for payment for a condition.... )

In big cities, I gather, unions and fraternal societies may have had a contract with a general practioner. Members could go to the organization's G.P. for treatment at a contracted price. Such organizations also offered burial subscriptions. Of course, fraternal societies have all but died out--and anyone with any money has his own doctor. HMO's are for peons.

David Trammel's picture

A good friend of mine and his family, their long time general practitioner is opting out of taking insurance and instead is going to a contracted yearly price for his visits. Good for him I guess since he no longer has to deal with the billing headaches of the insurance company, bad for my friends since they have to come up with I believe $3000 dollars now ($1000 each).

I assume that things like tests and other non-general procedures would be billed thru their insurance which they still have to carry.

She's a nurse and don't get her started on how the medical/insurance industry is screwing everyone over.

My guess is that for the vast majority of people over the next two decades, our medical professional will end up being a local healer/herbalist, with a few alternative medicine people like acupuncturists thrown in. That means JMG comments about a slow decrease in population will arrive as scheduled.

I have one whole bookshelf of medical texts I've picked up at estate sales in my library. Even found a herbal guide for cats and dogs, lol. For everyday aches and pains I try and check these first. So far I haven't had to use a doctor for anything. I do worry alot about an injury at work, since we do work in a moderately dangerous setting.

The company I work for is a family owned multi-state corporation, and is self insured but with a great plan. Still with the deductibles I can't afford to get too sick. The original founder is still alive, though in his 80s, and treats his employees like family. When he passes, I hope his son does the same.

Hope but plan as if he won't. At 57 myself I'm just trying to keep myself healthy and fit.