Why
the cost of your dental care really hasn’t increased that much? In fact it has either tracked or lagged
behind the consumer price index and this is despite all the advances in dental
technology. Compare that observation to
your medical care costs. If you go in to
see your dentist and ask for an estimated cost of treatment, 9 times out of 10
you will get a quote. Try doing that in
your physician’s office. Why? Because your dental care has been a product
of the free market system. The insurance
companies have never yet to invade the purview of your oral health the way they
have dominated, if not destroyed your overall health care.
You get your teeth examined, cancer
screening, teeth cleaning and x-rays twice a year for less than $300.00. And that’s about two hours of actual
treatment from your dentist and his/her team.
At the physician’s office you go in once a year, see your physician or
his PA for about 10 to 16[i]
minutes on average and it costs $300 to $900.00, depending on possible
immunizations and your blood work (which costs more than twice what an
independent lab charges if you have it done outside of your physician’s office). Physicians
are paid by insurance and Medicare submittals based on the procedures they
perform and not by the amount of time they spend with you. So the quicker the visit the more procedures they
can bill your insurance. If they take
too long it cost them money, not you.
And all their revenues are based on negotiated fees with your insurance
company, not the free market system. Ah,
the key phrase – free market system. Dentistry never bought into
insurance coverage for your treatment and care, and as a result of the free
market system there has been a reasonable or to put it better, a withstandable
increase to the cost of your oral health care based on the supply and demand
curves.
So how much does insurance influence
the cost of your health care?
Anecdotally, let me tell you about my daughter’s, but really my
experience with health care and why we are the losers in this battle to secure
adequate health care treatment at an affordable price. My daughter had a cyst under her eyelid. It was not visible to you or me, but it
irritated the dickens to her cornea. I found a specialist and accompanied my
daughter to the physician. It was
determined that the treatment required general anesthesia to safely perform the
surgery. When I asked ‘how much’, I
received no answer. I was passed on to
the patient coordinator for that physician.
So I asked ‘how much’, and again I received no answer. They didn’t have a clue what this was going
to cost me. So I immediately said ‘sign
me up, I’ll take two’. Seriously
though, they needed my insurance carrier and they would let me know, great.
I get a call from the physician’s
office. It’s going to cost you $800 and
change. Ok, great, and is that my drive
out price? ‘Oh no, that’s just the
doctor’s fee.’ Ok, so what else? I have to call the surgical center. Ok, how much does that cost? We [the doctor] don’t know, you just have to
call and find out. So I called. The gentleman quoted me $1540.00 including 2
hours of facility and the anesthesiologist.
‘Oh, and you won’t be needing a biopsy, since this is cosmetic.’ No wait, this is not cosmetic, it’s required
surgery. So the gentleman backs up and
re-quotes the price. It will be $4 to 7
thousand for the surgical suite, $1800 & change for the anesthesiologist
and X amount of dollars for the biopsy.
Wait, hold on, back up a minute, you
just quoted me a price that is almost 7 times what the same procedure would
cost if it was elective surgery. Ah,
that key phrase creeps back in to the conversation. Under a free market system, elective surgery
only garners what the market will bear.
But under an insurance based system, physicians don’t know what it
costs, so they inflate the costs and hope for some remuneration equal to or in
excess of what it really costs under a free market system to treat you. In other words, it’s a crap-shoot your physician
is playing with your health insurance company.
And the loser is you. So the next
time you go to the physician or the
dentist, remember why you’re paying what to whom, the physician or your
insurance company. And the next time you
discuss health care reform; you’re probably talking about insurance
reform. If we can answer your questions
or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Novy Scheinfeld, DDS, PC
5471 Bells Ferry Road
Suite 200
Acworth, GA 30102
770-928-7281
info@rightsmilecenter.com
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