Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Ground rules
I may be an asshole, but I think doctors should get paid for their work whether they cure their patients or not. There. I’ve said it.
Because if we cured every last one of our patients, we would be gods, and then you would have to pay us in the tribute of our choosing.
Devotion.
Prayers.
A fattened calf or three.
Virgins.
Virgins.
That bill looks a shade more reasonable now, doesn’t it? I believe I’ve made my point.
D.
I look for a satisfaction guarantee. 😉
I may be an asshole but I’m really glad my HMO only paid my neurosurgeon $7,000 for the fucked up piece of brain surgery he did on me. He billed $50,000. I laugh silently because in the end, I’m the one paying the price.
You, Dr. Hoffman, are a different story. You are a good doctor and you should be paid all the time and double and maybe extra with stuff like cake.
Come to Canada, Dr. Hoffman, come to Canada!
I’m pretty sure our doctors get paid even if they accidentally lop the patient’s head off because they were distracted by the new OR nurse’s shapely ass.
Dan: Nope. Sorry. Doesn’t work like that.
CD: Ah, sweetie, you’re still reading me 🙂 When are you going to get back to blogging?
That’s hilarious that that mofo tried to bill 50K. Folks like that are just begging for an investigation from the Feds. The only docs who make that kind of dough are cosmetic surgeons.
Cake? Yeah, cake’s good. I love it when they bring me smoked salmon, too.
sxK: I know, I know . . . believe me, we haven’t stopped thinking about it.
…no way to give the story without breaking confidentiality? It sounds like a good one.
Doug: your reply to Chris was a little ambiguous. Are you still thinking about Canada or the new OR nurse’s shapely ass?
There’s no shame in saying “both”, of course.
Lyvvie: not that interesting, I’m afraid, and besides, confidentiality reigns supreme.
microsoar: since several of the OR staff read my blog, the correct answer is: ALL of their shapely asses 🙂
My mom was a divorce lawyer for about twenty years. (This was after getting her Ph.D. in Renaissance Comp Lit, teaching bible history at Harvard Divinity School, and volunteering years of time in MORAL (Which later became NARAL) and the ACLU.)
I used to write her cautionary billing letters. She had a policy in the fee agreement that all outstanding bills had to be paid before any court appearance. But she had clients who would call her two or three times a day, rack up bills, demand further discovery, etc., and then complain when the bill was too high. The “cautionary letter” was basically a note to say that if they organized their thoughts into a letter, the number of phone calls would go down, and the bill wold be reduced. Also there was a reminder that as a lawyer, she was not a licensed therapist and could not act as one. Here, would you like a list of therapists you can talk to about the stresses of getting a divorce? Then the note ended with a summary of outstanding charges, the percentage of those which were phone calls under fifteen minutes, and a reminder to pay in full before the next court date, which was xx/xx/xxxx.
And then, God Forbid, she would meet then in the hallway outside the courtroom and ask for their check. No check, no appearance.
Clients would call her every name in the book. And then they would say that they’d only pay if they “won.” (Who wins in a divorce case? It’s all a huge negotiation.)
Eventually she retired from the law because she couldn’t stand the clients anymore. Loved the law and the written and oral arguments, but the billing made her crazy.
(She was perhaps a touch crazy before she started the law, but that’s splitting hairs.)
I don’t believe medicine is an exact science, so a little leeway is to be expected. Besides, it would be hard living as a god, wouldn’t it? The sacrifices would stain the carpet, and burnt offerings might make the fire insurance go sky high….
and you think being a doctor is competitive?
I mean at least your patients don’t kill other doctors’ patients in Your name. Think of the guilt that would cause. Plus you’d end up as a figure in someone’s curse word.
ps
your email hates me.
Oops – How is the patient to know if the doctor working on them is doing them good or harm? There is such a thing as malpractice. There, I said it. But Walnut, having read your blog for years, although I do not know you, I believe that you are a very good person and a very good doctor. Bad doctors should be sued. Oops, I said something very bad again! Doctors are gods – they hold your life in their hands.
Suisan: great example of how medicine and the law are so very different. If a doctor did that, it would be patient abandonment & malpractice. But then, lawyers get to have sex with their clients, and that’s considered okay in most states. Docs can’t even date their patients without potentially incurring the wrath of the state medical board.
sam, yup, the point is that the human body is not a car, nor is it plumbing (well, not entirely), nor is it a construction site. If you’re building a wall and you follow certain practices, you can be nearly 100% certain that the wall will not fall down. The human body is constantly making liars of us. The best we can do is quote statistics . . . but if the doc tells you there’s a 1% chance of X happening to you, it’s human nature to ignore it. And if X happens, that chance became 100% for you, right? I understand why people can become upset over such things, but they have to learn that the body is unpredictable.
Kate, that sounds like a wonderful short story idea. I’m going to let it incubate.
Lucie, that’s an excellent question, and not easily answered. Much depends on the level of sophistication of the patient. And ‘malpractice’ is not always obvious, even to another doctor, particularly if that doctor is from another specialty. And of course bad docs need to get sued, but even more, they need to be identified by peer review and reported to their state medical boards — because a malpractice suit won’t stop a doc from committing more malpractice, but the state medical board CAN stop the doc right in his tracks.
Lawyers have fee agreements which the clients have to sign before the lawyer begins work. If you sign a contract saying that you will pay in full before the court date, then you’ve indemnified the lawyer against a claim of abandonment.
Judges were practicing lawyers once too, and they almost always rule in favor of the lawyer getting paid. And they like signed legal contracts. And they can understand the contract and what it implications are, unlike a lot of stressed out soon-to-be-divorcees. (accent?)
So the trick is to find a judge who used to be a doctor . . . 🙂