I just started with a new doctor and LOVED her. The 3.15% was disclosed in advance and I willingly paid it because, as I am self-employed, that nasty surcharge comes right off the top as a business expense. However, that office also has gone cashless, leaving only debit as the alternative, which also has a fee, albeit a tiny one.
Chalk this one up to a changing world. My advice would be to balance the quality of care with the financial aspect. I have specialists who don’t pass along the merchant discount fee and I judge everyone by quality of care first. There’s no simple formula.
@Merlin
I had a talk with them. They were basically saying a lot of practices around changed to this model, so they are doing that as well. I feel me complying this time will help my other providers do the same and say the same in the future.
My concerns are mostly from these aspects:
This year another provider billed insurance wrongly and they refused to fix it. I cannot do anything about that.
Another provider messed up with an insurance claim and I got denied for an $8000 practice. Although this was resolved later, but if the provider does not want to resolve it like the provider in #1, then I will get a surprise auto charge of $8000 on my credit card.
I understand providers do face lots of risks. But with this new practice, they basically unloaded all the risk to customers.
I’d value the actual quality of care first, but if you feel like it’s mostly pretty generic care I’d probably leave for someone cheaper. Not really the 3% fees, because that’s just noise given the variables in pricing care.
People probably think I’m crazy in that I don’t carry health insurance and just pay out of pocket too.
@Dolph
I had a talk with them. They were basically saying a lot of practices around changed to this model so they are doing that as well. I feel me complying this time will help my other providers do the same and say the same in the future.
My concerns are mostly from these aspects:
This year another provider billed insurance wrongly and they refused to fix it. I cannot do anything about that unless they fix it. Since the bill was $100, I just ate the loss and paid instead of spending more efforts.
Another provider messed up with an insurance claim and I got denied for an $8000 practice. Although this was resolved later, but if the provider does not want to resolve it like the provider in #1, then I will get a surprise auto charge of $8000 on my credit card.
I understand providers do face lots of risks. But with this new practice, they basically unloaded all the risk to customers.
@Paden
Yeah makes sense. Being billed automatically makes disputing claims very hard. I’ve received medical bills for over $50k I was later told to ignore, would have been awful if that maxed out a card.
I like to say that I’m one of those people that say, if they charge a fee, I’m not going there anymore. But, who am I kidding? My go-to restaurant where I frequent whenever I want to go out and don’t know where to eat (which is often) charges a fee now. I’m not going to stop going there. In OP’s case, well, if I really like my doctor or it was really important for my health, I’d pay it. It’s one thing to “ban” these places if you don’t frequent them much, but at the end of the day, I’m not avoiding the places I like because of a fee. It sucks, but more and more places are starting to do this.