Alison's Window
Sundays are good days to get together with kids and grandkids. We now have one grandchild with another due in a month. The problem is that we live on the west coast of Florida and our kids live in NOVA (Northern Virginia by D.C.), Cincinnati and soon, Birmingham, Alabama. That is one advantage of living in Western Europe, short travel distances and good train connections. I'm all for the kids' independence, as long as they live close enough to visit easily. This country needs to develop a web of ground transportation, probably trains for the longer distances and extended metros for closer in, with short term rental cars available at each of the destinations.

I don't know if it is the people attracted to Florida or if this is more common around the country than I knew. And I don't know if it is something that is so obvious everyone will say "Well, duh! You didn't know that?" But it seems to me that there are a lot of medical practitioners here in the Tampa Bay area who operate like little retail businesses, not professional Hippocratic oath takers.

Many of them attempt to set each client up for excessive and unnecessary services and too frequent return visits. One dentist I ran across takes 10 xrays on the initial visit, pokes around with a sharp instrument and charges $400. Then he wants the patient to come in for a cleaning every THREE months (1 year is the norm). My neighbor's eye doctor charges Medicare $100 to pluck an eyelash every three months.
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Some of them are open part time and seem to be working at all only so they can play golf. The attitude that pervades these practices is one of unprofessional indifference to the clients (patients). The practitioner wants to make a sale and close the deal. For instance, a general MD in this area employs low wage (read poorly trained) front office help, does work his nurses should do (e.g. drawing blood) so he can charge the insurance company a full OV fee, and gives flip answers to medical questions. Oh, but be sure and come back every month for a new test.

Another one (not an MD) sells equipment that doesn't fit and then refuses to take it back and reverse the charges to the insurance company.

Is this common practice these days or is this just an unrepresentative subset of the industry?