Transparency: What Our Healthcare System Is Missing

I hate to say it but I resent our convoluted healthcare system.

We live in the greatest country in the world and yet we have such a confusing and broken health care model. I’m not here to write about my idea for a solution. I’m here to tell you how we are avoiding many of the pitfalls of our current medical model.

First, let me add some context by telling you about a recent experience my family had with a physician group.

My wife had been dealing with on and off fatigue for about a year or two and we just thought that it was due to her working night shift and having a hard time getting into a sleep routine.
We did blood work and were able to get her feeling better but it was always a short lived response.

Finally, we decided to see an internal medicine doctor and they narrowed it down to either celiac disease or small intestine bacterial overgrowth (SIBO). This was the prognosis because she had been put on antibiotics for a sinus infection around the same time she started feeling excessively tired almost two years ago.

We go to the office visit, the doctor is behind schedule and spends hardly any time with us. He gives us a couple options for testing and we decide to do a blood test to rule out celiac disease. We ask him and the front desk staff what the office visit will cost and what the blood test will cost.

They tell us they do not know.

Fast forward to 1 month later, we get a bill from the physician for $360 for the office visit. That’s $360 for a 15-minute conversation with the physician. The next day we get a bill for the blood test. Grand total for the blood test, $940. One blood test costs $940? What the hell kind of X-Men next-level blood test was this?

The results of the test showed there was no celiac disease so the solution was another round of antibiotics to fix the SIBO. Great, let’s fix this thing. So we ask the doctor’s office how much will the antibiotics cost? They tell us they don’t know. We call the insurance company and ask what the antibiotics will cost, they tell us they don’t know.

Alright, you’ve got us, let’s just get the antibiotics and wait for another bill in the mail. The good news is, the antibiotics worked great. My wife has been feeling better than she had in years. The bad news is, the bill we got for the antibiotics was $1650.

Let’s add this all up.

• One office visit = $360
• One blood test= $940
• One bottle of antibiotics= $1650

Grand total= $2950 plus hours of office visits and testing and phone calls with the insurance company

Here’s my general feeling throughout the entire process: Are you kidding me?

As much as the cost of everything was, that’s not the part we were mad about. It’s the complete lack of transparency in the entire process. Tell me I’m going to have to get a $1650 bottle of pills that will cause my wife to feel better and I’ll gladly pay that. Send me a bill for the same amount a month later and now you’ve got an angry consumer.

Transparency is the key. Communication is vital. This is a relationship between a patient and their medical provider. It’s no different than any other relationship.

When we opened Pro+Kinetix 3 years ago, this was a core value for us. Transparency in medical care. Why is this so rare?

If you ask me what we charge, I’ll tell you. We charge $225 for an hour-long visit and it’s an absolute steal compared to the crappy healthcare you’ll get pretty much everywhere else.

• We’re always on time because we respect the value of your time.
• We’ll never send you a bill a month later for some amount of money.
• You’ll always have email access to your provider to answer any question you have because we want you to feel comfortable through the entire process.
• We treat people the way we would want our own family to be treated.

I see more and more medical providers moving this direction. It’s better for the patients, it’s better for the provider and it sets the precedence for an honest, long-term relationship.

Sadly, many of you have probably gone through the same process my wife did. This isn’t an isolated incident that we can chalk up to bad luck or chance. This is a daily occurrence in our medical system. I hope it continues to move toward a better model but in the meantime, we’ll do our part with our patients.

We strive for honest, selfless service of our patients every day. That will never change.

           -Dr. Colin Miller, PT, DPT