Allergy doctors are a racket
August 17, 2004I think allergy doctors, and their medical offices, are an insurance scam. I just came back from a visit to my allergist, or rather one of his nurse practitioners. Of the 70 minutes I spent in their office, she was there for maybe the last ten minutes at most. The rest of the time I was doing a breathing test with one of the assistants, going over some paperwork, and mostly just sitting around.
When the nurse practitioner did arrive we chatted about my medication regimen (AdVair twice a day, albuterol as needed before strenuous exercise), she listened to my lungs, and took my blood pressure. From those things she was able to check off five different boxes on my little medical form. Each of those boxes represented a treatment or examination of some kind, meaning the office gets to bill my insurance for five things. If those five things average just $50 each she made $250 for the office (plus my $15 co-pay) for spending just ten minutes with me.
That’s way more expensive than a good hooker would cost, or a good steak dinner for two, or any number of things. If she’s seeing just four patients like me per hour she’s billing $1,000 per hour. That’s even better than OJ Simpson’s lead defense attorney, Johnnie Cochran.
I’m in the wrong line of work.
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