The last post on this blog - but I'm continuing on another

For mysterious reasons, Google has stopped indexing this blog, so you few loyal readers are among only a dozen or two that can still find me. I've tried and appealed to many support groups, but no one has helped.

Finally I decided to continue this in a new blog with a new name and a different E-mail hoping Google would lift the ban. I changed the name to "The Housecall Doctor."  At this point it doesn't look good because if you Google "The Housecall Doctor" the new blog doesn't turn up. But you can reach it by entering the link "thehousecalldoctor.blogspot.com.

A Dog-Eat-Dog Business, Part 11

 “This is Doctor Oppenheim,” I repeated several times before hanging up. Caller ID identified the Doubletree in Santa Monica, so I phoned to ask if someone had requested a doctor. Someone had.

“You answered, but you couldn’t hear me,” said the guest. “So I called the front desk again, and they gave me a different number. Another doctor is coming.”

That was upsetting because the Doubletree is a regular. When asked, the guest gave me the 800 number of Hotel Doctors International, a service based in Miami.

“How much are they charging?” I asked.

“I don’t know. They just asked if I had insurance.”

That was a red flag. Many hotel doctor agencies charge spectacular fees and then assure guests that travel insurance will reimburse them. Forewarned of our rapacious medical system, foreign travelers rarely make a fuss – and foreign travel insurance generally pays outrageous fees. But American insurance doesn’t.

I told the guest, an American, that my fee was $300 and that he should call the agency and ask what it charged. It turned out to be $650 (far from the largest I’ve heard), so I made the housecall.

Afterward, standing on tiptoes to peer over the front desk, I saw the colorful business card of Hotel Doctors International stuck on the counter. The clerk, who had insisted that mine was the only number she knew, expressed surprise when I pointed it out.