While
an ER visit may indeed treat medical needs, the reality
is that most visits end up being more about peace of mind.
If your child's skin is turning red in the middle of the
night, you might not know if it's harmless flushing, or
a serious allergic reaction. So you rush off to the
emergency room, fill out some forms, and sit in a room full
of contagious people. You wait and wait, finally get
to speak to a nurse, then wait some more, and explain your
problem again to the resident. Then you may have a
battery of tests done, wait some more, and finally leave
with a prescription and a bill for $650.
All
this for a problem that could have been far less expensive,
and handled more simply and expediently by discussing the
situation with your doctor. According to the American
Medical Association, about 70% of doctor and emergency room
visits are actually just informational.
However,
asking your doctor a health question is rarely as easy as
picking up the phone. Because insurance companies
do not normally reimburse doctors for phone care, most traditional
practices avoid offering such service. Instead, their
objective is to get you into the office so that you can
be billed for the service you receive.
Paying
for that office and the surrounding bureaucracy is not cheap.
A doctor's costs may include the office itself, a receptionist,
a triage nurse, someone handling insurance billing, office
managers, and expensive medical equipment. All this
is very expensive to maintain, so generating as many office
visits as possible is critical for most doctors to even
stay in business.
So you
get stuck in a system that is inconvenient, expensive, and
does not value your time.
Telephone
Consultation Services
As
health savings accounts
become more popular and more people are paying for their own doctor visits,
several companies have begun offering inexpensive telephone and email consultations
with board-certified physicians. These companies can offer dramatically
lower prices because they have cut out most of the costs that burden traditional
medical facilities.
Though
telephone consultations are obviously not appropriate for all medical conditions,
it is an accepted standard of care for many health-care problems. In fact,
telephone medicine has been around as long as the telephone, and is practiced
throughout the country by most doctors at night and on weekends.
Here
are a few companies I am aware of that are now offering telephone consultations
with licensed physicians. (If you are aware of others, please let me know).
Doctor
on Call (www.unadoctoroncall.com).
This company currently has over 240 board-certified physicians on call, with
24-hour access. The physicians with this service will not diagnose or
prescribe, but they will provide information based on your questions.
The price is a bargain - only $5.95/month for the family for an unlimited number
of calls.
TelaDoc
Medical Services (www.teladoc.com).
This company also provides 24-hour access to members and dependents age 12+.
Telephone medical consultations are with primary care doctors who can also diagnose
medical problems and prescribe appropriate medications. There is an initial
$18 registration fee, and a monthly fee of $4.25 for an individual or $7 for
a family. Consultations are a flat $35.
Doctokr
(www.doctokr.com) is a practice run by
Virginia physician Alan Dappen. Though this service is only available
to people who can come in to his office for an initial visit, it is a model
likely to be copied by other providers as consumers become more price conscious
when shopping for medical care. 24-hour access is available by telephone
and email. Consultations are billed in 5-minute increments ranging in
price from $15 to $22.50. A simple consultation to request medication
refills costs from $10 to $15 for up to 5 medications. There is a monthly
fee of $5.95.
Saving
You Time and Money
Not
only will these services save you money when compared to a typical doctor visit,
but they will also save you time. You may be able to quickly resolve routine
medical issues in a fraction of the time you would spend accessing care from
urgent care facilities, emergency rooms or physician offices. If you use
a service that will prescribe medications, you could have your consultation
finished and the medicine in hand in less than the time it would otherwise take
just to visit the doctor.
As
telephone technology evolves, I anticipate these services will add picture taking
and even recording vital signs, and the scope of these physician consultations
will become broader. With doctors visits approaching $100 each and ER
visits in excess of $800, it doesn't take much to justify the small monthly
fee for most of these services.
Though
there are certainly times when visiting your doctors office or the emergency
room is the most appropriate thing to do, as a smart consumer you owe it to
yourself to be aware of all your options. Using a physician telephone
consultation service can help you avoid the expense, time, and hassles of urgent
care facilities, emergency rooms, and visits to the doctor.
To
your health and wealth,
Wiley
Long
President - HSA
for America
P.S. - Do you currently own a health savings account?
If so, how is it working out for you? Are you taking
advantage of the tax benefits? Are you letting your
investments grow, or taking them out to cover medical expenses?
I'd love to hear what's working, and what you think of the
entire concept of health savings accounts.
P.P.S.
- Over half of all Americans now suffer from at least one
of the symptoms of metabolic syndrome, including high blood
pressure, elevated cholesterol levels, obesity, and diabetes.
Next month I'll be discussing the key dietary steps that
can enable you to avoid these diseases (so you can continue
to let your HSA grow tax-free!).
