Crankshaft by Tom Batiuk and Dan Davis for March 05, 2024

Lillian’s appointment was 10 minutes ago with Dr. Billing.

No personnel contact for checking in, Unless you need help with the terminal. then you get an assistant helping you without the protection of the germ screen in front of the check-in desk.

And then you is signs the terms and conditions and privacy policy documents where you is agrees to sells your body and soul to the big pharma. Mwa ha ha ha.

Get another doctor.

Is that CauCayla?

No contact sign in—except for with the dirty nasty filthy screen containing every disease known and unknown to mankind.

Fortunately, I live in Canada and don’t have to answer the 57 questions about billing and insurance.

Can’t the receptionist read the screen, ask the questions and poke the boxes for her?

Plus your identification plus your insurance cards, all on a screen you can barely read.

Hit at the wrong place and you have to start over……………..prefer the clipboard….easy to change the date if you get it wrong!!!!!!

Got that right

This is an unfortunate truth today.

Most physicians are more concerned with making a fortune than their patient’s health. Some USA hospitals will try to turn away patients with no medical insurance and send them to a “pauper’s hospital”. Healthcare is all about making money, NOT healthcare.

the excitement never goes away at your daily crankshaft

Sad commentary on life for those not astute with the new technology age and the lack of assistance for them……

I’m here to see Dr. Who…what?…no he’s on second

One of the specialists demands “Payment at time of service.” I have a high deductible plan, with an employer-sponsored account that pays 90% of the out-of-pocket expenses. The clerk asked me to pay $140. I told her the HRA would pay them in a few days. She told me “We demand payment at time of service.” I told her that I’d been through this, and if I paid them, the insurance would pay them again, and then I’d have to wait for them to get around to reimbursing me. She made me pay anyway. Then, when I went for my follow up a week later, she wanted me to pay again, but I had a “credit” on my account. So she rolled my refund over to the next co-pay. This went on for 6 weeks, until I was better. She told me I had a credit balance, and that they don’t mail out checks until the end of the month. I told her “I demand payment at the time it’s owed.” I also told the doctor I was finding a new specialist.

Yeah, take that, 21st-century American health care! Batiuk has you in his sights, and he’s taking no prisoners! Never mind that other strips from “Dustin” to “Gasoline Alley” (!) have already done this bit.

Don’t forget all the questions about symptoms that you’ve been repeating every time you’ve seen the doctor for the last 15 years.

I have been on Medicare for five years now, and the thing I love most about it is the absence of those three million questions about insurance, along with the absence of a “referral” requirement or a need to get a treatment “authorized” by the insurance company. I go to my doctor, he says “you need this,” they do it on the spot, Medicare and my Part B insurance plan pays. End of story. This is particularly nice when I have to visit my orthopedist—we talk about my knees, they take an x-ray, he says I’m still a good candidate for Jell-O Shot treatment, and I get the first one right there in the office. Back when I had commercial, unregulated, employer-mandated insurance, each one of these steps would have required a separate visit and a week to get approval from the insurance company.

Lilliopsaurus, who is a whole lot older than me, should have the same experience… unless she listened to some has-been actor who sweet-talked her into an “advantage” [sic] plan, which gives you all the restrictions and red tape of conventional private insurance.

As we say in Chicago, “dere’s two kinds of advantage in da world. Dere’s dat advantage, and dere’s dis advantage. Guess which one you got…”

If Lil is like most of us, all she knows about insurance, and, billing is to show her Medicare, and, insurance cards. The rest is a mystery.

I saw my doctor yesterday. All I was asked was my name and birthdate. If you’re thinking “Why is he bringing this up? It’s not funny.” Like this strip is?

Good bye

And, of course, there’s no chair to use while working the kiosk, and the pad is attached so you can’t take it back to your chair.

Must be a third-world sh!thole country without national health or single payer. Just a for profit “system.” Thank dog we emigrated to a civilised country with national health. The MOH up here even allowed me to practice after passing the required exam for all who are/were licensed in a different country.