I
make the majority of my calls at the request of national housecall agencies,
international travel insurers, airlines, and a sprinkling of miscellaneous
sources including other hotel doctors. That’s fine with me.
A
few dozen Los Angeles
area hotels call me exclusively. That leaves over a hundred, all of whom have
my number but who call another doctor or no doctor and sometimes me.
Competition for these hotels has become so cutthroat that I’m happy to leave it
to others.
If
you’ve followed my posts you’ve learned about my excellent skills and low fees.
Why would a hotel bother with anyone else? The answer is that service and price
are useless marketing tools in medicine where the law of supply and demand
doesn’t work.
Providing
a doctor produces no revenue for the hotel, and guests don’t demand one, so
most general managers pay no attention. Asked for help by a guest, employees
are on their own.
They may simply give out a number, but many prefer the
traditional arrangement once used to summon a prostitute. A bellman made a
phone call. As the lady left, she stopped at the bell desk to drop off a
portion of her fee.
It’s illegal for a doctor to pay for a referral, but
what are the options for someone yearning to break in to the glamorous and
lucrative world of hotel doctoring? Claiming to deliver superior medical care
sounds weird. Advertising a low fee is vulgar. Whoring works better.
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