What if doctors were like massage therapists?
Friday, May 28th, 2010I was getting a massage yesterday, and it struck me how simple the payment system was. I paid for a twenty minute chair massage, told the therapist “my shoulders really hurt,” and away we went. He worked the knots out, and I gratefully sat there in quiet bliss, face smashed against a paper towel on the massage chair. At the end I said thanks, and gave him a tip. I didn’t stop as I stood up and say, “But you know, I really hurt in my low back. Can you work on that too?”
Instead, I put my money in the tip jar, and listened as he told me to drink lots of water. What if doctors were paid that way? What if the patient paid for a certain amount of time, and when it was over, it was over? If the patient wanted more time, she would have to pay for it. For instance, if I had wanted him to work more on my shoulders, I would have forked over the cash. Also, I made sure I was ready to start and didn’t waste time chit chatting. Imagine: the therapist asks: “Are there areas you want to focus on?” and I answer, “well, yesterday, I was playing in my tennis league, and was serving really hard, and then didn’t stretch afterwards, but instead went right to the beverage table, and had snacks–and they were really good, they had those wraps with the turkey and swiss, and ranch, and I really love them. And then I had a glass of wine, red, I think, and then some of those brownies…And so my shoulder hurt, because it started to rain, and I didn’t have my jacket and the car was too far away to make it work my effort and then–.” You get the point.
And if I had chattered on, he would have taken it out of my chair time.
What do you think? A new billing system in the works?