The Economical Charges

Dr. Dev (fictional name) was visiting his friend Dr. Akshay Kalekar (fictional name), the famous ENT surgeon. We had read his smart way to cut cost in his day to day practice in ‘The Tongue Depressor’ http://agnipathdoctors.blogspot.com/2015/05/practice-tips-tongue-depressor.html

While Dr. Dev was sitting in his consultation chamber, a patient came to show his problem. Dr Akshay examined the patient, made his diagnosis and asked to see his previous treatment papers.

After examining his previous papers, Dr. Akshay explained to the patient, that he requires operation to treat his condition.

The patient agreed to undergo operation, as his previous doctor has also advised operation as part of treatment. He asked Dr. Akshay his professional charges for the operation.

‘It will be Rs. 12,000’ replied Dr. Akshay.

Dr. Dev was surprised because Dr. Akshay normally charges just Rs. 10,000 for that procedure. He keenly waited to see the patient’s reaction to hearing the charges.

Much to his further surprise, the patient happily agreed to the charges without even requesting to give him discount or reduction in the charges.

As soon as the patient had left the consultation chamber, Dr. Dev curiously inquired, ‘Dr. Akshay, why did you tell the patient your charges will be Rs. 12,000 for the operation, when you routinely charge just Rs. 10,000 for same?’ ‘And, more importantly why did the patient so readily agreed to the charges without demanding for some discount as patients usually do?’

‘Well Dr. Dev’ replied Dr. Akshay, ‘your surprise is justified.’ ‘I do charge Rs 10,000 for this operation. But while going through patient’s previous treatment record I found that he had consulted Dr. R. S. Sharma (fictional name), senior ENT surgeon of the city and he had also advised operation for the same.’

‘Now, being a senior ENT surgeon with an advanced setup, Dr. R. S. Sharma’s operation charges are generally 50% more than what most of us generally charge. So, he must have told the patient that the charges for this operation will be Rs. 15,000.’

‘So, when I told the patient the charges for this operation will be Rs. 12,000, he happily agreed as my charges appeared economical as compared to Dr. R. S. Sharma’s charges. The patient was getting a reduction of Rs. 3,000 or 20% in the operation charges as proposed by Dr. R. S. Sharma.’

‘So’, elucidated Dr. Akshay, ‘It pays to know whom the patient consulted before coming to you and what your other colleagues are charging for their services.’

(Based on true incident)
— ND
© Author. All rights reserved. 

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purpose. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use of the information herein is at you one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Practice should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost. 


You can share this post on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google +, etc, using the Buttons above 'Labels' and below 'Posted by:'.
Please give your valuable feedback via comments below. Please note that comments will appear after moderations
You can receive notification on latest post by subscribing via clicking on the bottom of the page on the Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)