August 15, 2010

The doctor will see you ... now


I was just recently reminded by the Obama administration of the very existence of Concierge Medicine (or as the Feds call it, "Cadillac" medical coverage.) Obama would like to tax it at a higher rate, if I recall correctly --- or in some other way make certain that people with that much money who refuse to wait their turn in the general pool need to pay through the nose for the privilege, in addition to the annual 5-figure membership fees that these outfits charge.

Sometime in the early 2000s, my mother signed up with a Concierge Medicine service in Boston. The idea is that you pay more for the perks of being able to reach a physician on the phone, on a 24/7 or nearly 24/7 basis. Further, you're able to make appointments on a rapidly accelerated basis: even if you have a non-emergent problem, you're able to call the doc on Monday and see him (or a close colleague in the same practice) on Tuesday or Wednesday.

In any case, she joined up and then promptly pegged all of their phone call and FAX meters. Even though these practices are centered around patient satisfaction and hand-holding, she more or less broke through all of their former limits on high-maintenance patients.

She asked me to make a call for her to them sometime in 2005 ... I can't remember the details. But it was made clear to me that she was no longer their patient, and that it was not her decision --- almost certainly due to her setting new records for entitlement, wheel-spinning, and number of pages of handwritten diatribes sent via FAX. Further, their tone was so defensive that it suggested that she had really taken it up a notch --- I have no idea how. I never got the full story on this one, but wanted to make a note of it before it left my memory entirely.

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