Housecalls Are Not Cheap

A lady fell, catching herself on outstretched palms. That often breaks the tip of the radius where it meets the wrist, and she felt pain in that precise area. She needed an X-ray and an office visit.

A man accidentally bent his forefinger far backwards lifting a heavy box. He suffered excruciating pain over the knuckle. I suspected a fracture or torn tendon. He needed the same follow-up.

Both patients lived in Santa Ana, a fifty mile drive. The director of the housecall service who phoned admitted that these were not typical clients, but someone wanted the visits and was paying generously.

The next day, the director informed me that a mobile X-ray van had gone to both apartments. The patients’ employer wanted to know my plans. That’s when I realized that I shouldn’t have made those visits. These patients had been injured at work, and the employer had decided a housecall was the cheapest way to handle them. That was his first mistake. The major advantage of a housecall is convenience; it’s cheap only for trivial problems.

Far worse was his failure to know that job-related injuries must be handled through Workers Compensation, a system most doctors, me included, take care to avoid. It is a bureaucratic nightmare, wildly expensive and corrupt. Your state legislators, Republican and Democrat, know this but keep quiet. Workers Compensation is the state government equivalent of Israel: no elected official in Washington dares criticize Israel.

I told the housecall service that I was out of the picture and that the employer should read the law, and find a doctor who deals with Workers Compensation.    

Customers Come and Customers Go

American doctors complain about paperwork, but it’s no problem with me. I give guests a copy of the record I write in the room. I fax the same to housecall agencies and foreign travel insurers. American insurers look with deep suspicion on housecalls, so I don’t deal with them, and when foreign carriers feel the urge to adopt American techniques (complex codes, lengthy invoices, deductibles, fee schedules), I stop working for them.

This is less of a sacrifice than you’d think because they switch to a national housecall service, most of whom call me. I earn my usual fee, and the service bills the insurer more, often much more. The logic of this is unclear to me.  

Assistcard, an international insurer that has called for twenty years, stopped recently. When I phoned, a representative explained that Assistcard had made arrangements with other Los Angeles doctors who accepted less than I charged. I expressed congratulations, but this seemed unlikely. I charge less than the going rate, other hotel doctors do not work with travel insurers because they pay slowly, and doctors who agree to make housecalls on the side are not likely to drop everything and go. A week after that exchange, Assistcard resumed calling.

Calls from the Biltmore, once a regular, vanished in 2010. Last May the general manager phoned to announce that I was now the hotel’s doctor. I can’t remember the last time a manager did that. Sure enough, the hotel resumed calling. I’m sure an incident in the hotel convinced her that having me as the house doctor would be a good idea. Sadly, I forgot to ask for details.