Disappointment

“A guest needs a doctor. Are you available?”

“I am. If you connect me to his room, I’ll try to help.”

My tone was businesslike, but joy filled my heart. The caller was the Airport Renaissance which never called. Acquiring a competitor’s hotel is a rare and delightful event.

A male voice answered after two rings. “There’s something in my eye.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“It’s no big deal. If you give me tweezers, I’ll take it out myself.”

“You mean it’s visible?”

“There’s a sliver stuck in my eyeball… Don’t tell me to go to a hospital. I’ll sign anything. Come to the room. Or get me tweezers.”

He interrupted my response.

“No hospital! No emergency room! Bring legal documentation to protect your liability. I’ll sign. Come alone. Don’t bring any FBI or CIA.”

I called the concierge to report that this was a matter for the police or paramedics. She admitted that the guest was causing a disturbance.

Sadly, I realized that the Renaissance was not changing doctors. Hotels hate dealing with crazy, drunk, or disruptive guests. When the regular doctor refused to come, the staff, in desperation, began calling other doctors in hopes that one would make the problem go away. This happens once or twice a year.

Cash Flow Problems

“Pick up card! Pick up card!” intoned the computer. Unlike other messages, this never means a typing mistake, but I re-entered the numbers and heard the same announcement.

Wearily, I phoned International Assistance to explain that their credit card had been rejected. The dispatcher put me on hold for several minutes before returning with another card number. In the past, I’ve gone through several before hearing the computer’s approval, but this one worked, and I left for the hotel.

International Assistance insures travelers from Latin America. It’s sent me on nearly 900 housecalls since the 1980s. It was always a slow payer, but since the turn of the century it began requiring months of pestering before sending a check. Finally I lost patience and demanded that it pay by credit card. Although credit cards charge about six percent of my fee, they’re a big convenience. I punch in a series of numbers; two days later money appears in my bank account.

Slow payment usually means an organization is struggling. It’s maxing out its credit cards and getting them cancelled but keeping others in reserve. A few have gone out of business, owing money, but International Assistance has been irritating doctors for decades; many colleagues refuse its requests. It’s the oldest of half a dozen travel insurers that call me, so this may be a reliable tactic for minimizing cash flow.

A Dog-Eat-Dog Business...again

Waiting at the local carwash, my eye ran over a sheet of ads along one wall. Among notices for personal injury lawyers, pest control, acupuncturists, and pizzas was a photo of a smiling young man in a white coat carrying a doctor’s bag. According to the text, a phone call would bring him to your door at a fee less than an emergency room’s. All ads for housecalls deliver this cheerful boast, never mentioning that the average ER visit has passed $1500.    

My first instinct was to chuckle at the waste of money. Few customers at a carwash will pay the going rate for a housecall. My second instinct was to worry. This fellow was ambitious. His web site features the same photograph plus testimonials from rating sites such as Yelp describing him as a healer of Christ-like compassion.

My third instinct was to recall a visit to Le Petite Hermitage, a small boutique hotel off the Sunset Strip. The guest had spoken to this doctor the day before, decided against a visit, and expressed pleasure at finding me and my lower fee. Since Le Petite Hermitage was a regular, I assumed he’d gotten the name from the internet. Now I’m not so sure because this occurred early in the year, and hotel hasn’t called since.

In large hotels employees know me by sight and take for granted, even without an official announcement, that I’m the official doctor. Since it has only 80 rooms, I may not visit Le Petite Hermitage for months at a time, so I’m not a familiar face. As a result, when an entrepreneurial physician makes an appearance to extol the benefits of his service including, perhaps, an amenity for the employee who refers a guest, he makes an impression.

Addicted to Gratitude

“You saw me at the Marriott yesterday. I still don’t feel good.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I did mention that you’d be under the weather a few days.”

“I still have a temperature. The Tylenol only works a few hours. The cough medicine isn’t doing much. I need something stronger.”

“I would love to make you better, but, as I explained, there’s no cure for these respiratory viruses.”

“What if it’s bronchitis? My doctor tells me I have a lot of bronchitis.”

“‘Bronchitis’ is just another word for coughing. It’s a virus that runs its course.”

“I guess I just have to be sick. Thank you, Doctor Oppenheim,” she said before hanging up. There was sarcasm in her tone. I felt bad.

I also felt a surge of anger at my fellow doctors, most of whom prescribe antibiotics for viral infections. No doctor believes they work, but prescribing them guarantees a patient’s gratitude; doctors are addicted to your gratitude. 

My practice is to prescribe antibiotics when they’ll help and to not prescribe them when they won’t except when it’s clear that the patient will blow his top if I don’t. This turns out to work pretty well. About ninety percent of patients seem genuinely grateful. Most of the remainder are dissatisfied, but they remember their manners. Perhaps one percent make it clear that I have failed them.

The Superiority of American Medicine

Patriots boast that American medicine is the best in the world. My view is more nuanced, but let me take their point of view. You’ll be amazed at the dumb things foreign doctors do!

They don’t give antibiotics for ear infections! 

If a child suffers a painful ear infection, the doctor prescribes an antibiotic. In many European countries, doctors give medicines for pain and fever but no antibiotic. If you’re wondering what happens to these poor European children, the answer is: they get better. Even in America, many experts believe that antibiotics don’t work for ear infections. It will take a lot more than expert opinion to persuade American doctors to avoid antibiotics in ear infections. American doctors love antibiotics as much as American patients.

They don’t care for hysterectomies!

Many women develop lumpy growths on the uterus called fibroids which may cause pain and irregular menstrual bleeding. A gynecologist can cure this by removing the uterus. It’s the second most common operation American women undergo (after caesarians; America leads the world in both).

The French have the odd idea the world would be a better place if there were more Frenchmen, so French doctors don’t sterilize women if they can avoid it. Mostly, they perform an operation that cuts off the fibroids but leaves the uterus intact. The surgery is more complicated and takes longer than a simple hysterectomy. American gynecologists could do the same, but they don’t, and they rarely discuss it with patients because they know American women aren’t interested.

They don’t try to cure every patient.

American doctors order more tests and prescribe more antibiotics, chemotherapy, and other powerful drugs than foreign doctors. They also perform far more surgery. These extras don’t necessarily cure. Sometimes they make patients sicker, but the important thing is that we’re doing something. American like aggressive doctors.

Foreign doctors spend a great deal of time making patients feel better – for example by ordering physical therapy (massage, exercise, heat, baths). American doctors prescribe physical therapy to speed recovery after surgery or injuries. European doctors prescribe it after childbirth and for migraines, irritable bowels, arthritis, fatigue, depression – dozens of problems.

European doctors actually send patients to health spas for baths, massage, etc., and health insurance pays for it! If you believe this is a waste of money, American doctors agree. Patients may feel better after a spa treatment, they explain, but it’s psychosomatic (in other words, if someone feels better -- but it’s only psychosomatic -- that’s not good).

The Evils of Common Sense

Everyone yearns to understand their medical problem. In the absence of evidence, they use common sense which turns out to be a terrible way to get at the truth. It’s a good rule that any common sense explanation of a medical problem is wrong. Here are others that I hear all the time.

“I can walk on it, so I know it’s not broken.”

It turns out that the fibula, one of two bones in the lower leg, doesn’t bear weight. You walk on your tibia.

“I can move it, so I know it’s not broken.” You may know, but I’m not so sure.

“I have to let this run its course…”

Seeing smoke pour out of your car’s exhaust, no one explains that the engine is repairing itself by expelling bad things. Yet plenty of patients believe vomiting or diarrhea is the body’s attempt to cleanse itself. In fact, it’s a malfunction. It’s OK to suppress it although exceptions exist for a few serious diseases.

“Fever is your body’s way of fighting an infection.”

Google “does fever treatment help” for an avalanche of praise for fever's healing properties from doctors and medical sites as well as laymen – a good sign that it’s nonsense.

Here are questions that you might ask.

1. In what specific infections is lowering the fever harmful? I can’t think of any.

2. What infections do doctors treat by giving patients a fever?  The answer is none (doctors tried this about a century ago, but it wasn’t helpful).

3. Every day, across the world, a hundred million people take medicine for fever. How many end up at the doctor who explains that they made the problem worse?

I Love Medicare

I have collected Medicare since 2005. There’s a belief that this means I get free medical care, but that’s definitely not true. Both Medicare Part A and B have deductibles, and sensible retirees buy a policy that pays most of what Medicare doesn’t pay (and it doesn’t pay quite a lot). There is also Medicare Part D which requires a premium that pays for drugs. Believe it or not, Part D was passed by Republicans.

Being Republicans they made sure the plan met the approval of pharmaceutical companies, and it does. They love it. Part D specifically forbids Medicare from negotiating for lower prices. Other government departments such as the V.A. can negotiate. Hospitals and private health insurers can negotiate. Medicare can’t. As a result, Part D premiums, no less than drug prices, have been shooting up each year.

The result is that I pay about $550 a month for medical insurance. In exchange, I get almost no medical bills. I love it. Even though Medicare is a government program, I receive less paperwork than when I belonged to Blue Cross (even writing “Blue Cross” produces a surge of anger; I hated it). 

My brother, a physician, detests Obamacare. He is liberal and an activist, and he dislikes Obamacare because it delivers a bonanza to insurance companies with no controls on cost. His criticisms are correct, but I tell him that as premiums skyrocket the outcry will force Washington to take action.

Conservatives tell us that in European national health plans the downtrodden physician takes his orders and pitiful salary from the government. In fact, all these countries have some private insurance. In many, such as Switzerland and the Netherlands, everyone buys medical insurance from private carriers just as they do in the US. The difference is that laws closely regulate them. The carriers aren’t losing money.

Things will work out.