Don’t give doctors a bad name like that. They work their asses off to help people and go many years being overworked and underpaid to do it
It’s the insurance companies that reap the benefits of people’s misfortune
It’s not the doctor and it’s def not the insurance company (although insurance companies are evil in their own way).
Insurance companies make money from limiting what services they cover for you and by negotiating doctors down into lower rates for the services they do cover; the less money they spend on your services is more profit for them.
The people actually making money and charging obscene amount, are
- facility owners (hospital, clinics, urgent care) who produce nothing, but simply have the capital to own property and start the business
- drug companies that charge thousands percents of profit simply because they can (remember the epi pen scandal?)
The doctor seeing you wants to make a living doing something they enjoy and excel at; the facility owners are who hire people educated in medical coding just to tack on every possible fee they can, stopping just short of fraud.
That ibuprofen they gave you? It really cost less than a dollar to produce, package, and ship to the facility; but because you were inpatient when you swallowed it, well now it’s $35
That doctor that came by while you were sleeping just to glance at your chart without actually consulting or giving any review of care plan? That’s $600 because fuck you
Having worked in healthcare and insurance for 14yrs now, it’s just fucking depressing to see how everything works.
I’m with you but it’s not the doctor it’s the hospital administrators who live like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
The doctors chose to work in such a hospital though in order to get higer wages
The doctor has $375k in loans they need to start paying back pretty soon.
It’ll be 20 years before they’re in a cushy private office with (only) a 50hr work week.
The issue largely exists in the healthcare industry (administration/insurance) that has grown up around actual medical providers and serve as middlemen and gatekeepers.
I’m too European to understand this
This is a shit take.
Doctors don’t discuss billing with patients, or their families. American healthcare is fucked enough in reality without making enemies of those trying to just do their fucking job.
having been through this exact situation, I get the point of the meme, and realize their intent was that “doctor” should be read as “healthcare industry”. Just poor word choice. Other side of the story, the healthcare professionals that cared for him where wonderful and did everything they could for him and I am totally OK with them getting paid for their efforts.
The sad thing is that the people who do the actual work barely see any of the money.
