About Us
Where Space is limited but service is not.
Fact: Independent Chiropractors Save You Money!
Not that long ago there were not many big group doctor practices. Doctors were most likely in small individual or partner type practices that had the basics in diagnostic equipment like an X-ray machine and perhaps a small lab capable of running basic tests. If a higher level of testing was needed the doctor would usually refer you to a hospital or other specialist who probably also had a small practice but had the necessary equipment to make a differential diagnosis. Most of what doctors did was treat the obvious and not tests.
Today, it is all turned around. Doctors are grouped into the big practices with super tech diagnostic equipment such as digital X-ray, MRIs, sophisticated labs, EMGs, EKGs, echocardiograms and the list goes on and on and on.
Big is in and small is out. The bigger you are, the more secure you are and the more services you can render. The more services you render means the higher the income.
The perception of care is considered good but the reality of consumer cost is high.
When you have high tech with big staffs of doctors, nurses, front desk and insurance secretaries along with other support personal the cost has got to be high. It is the only way you can pay for all this and still make a profit.
Yet, when the procedures are billed to the insurance companies, whom the clinics usually have contracts with; the actual collection may be a small percentage of the billed amount. Example: the bill is fifty and the collection is twenty.
A dilemma, how do you make a profit based on the lesser percentage of what is billed? You have to see more people and/or do more test. Are you seeing where this goes?
Welcome to the claws of health care. You are a part of the "people heard" and the extravagant testing that encompasses it. And yes there are legitimate concerns about malpractice and the necessity of the testing done. I am not implying that the testing (in particular) is unnecessary, only that you can't let high cost equipment stand idle and so they have to be used and used frequently.
What about small practices, ones where they do not have a lot of diagnostic equipment?
Well one thing is for sure, if they don't have the tech they certainly can't use it but they can always order it, if needed, at a hospital or other specialized facility.
With small practices the decision to order, lets say an X-ray, is based on the true necessity for the test and benefit to the patient and not on the concerns of maintaining and paying for the equipment.
Moreover small practices can send the patients to any facility the patient wants to go to and still have all the high tech in his armory along with the assurance that the person or facility doing the test has more expertise than what the doctor may have.
The small doctor is truly freed from the pressures of ordering test and can concern himself with the treatment of his patients, and usually at a lower overall cost to the
patient.
So the next time you hear of some one who is looking for a doctor (DC, MD, etc) let them know of the advantages of a small practice and how it can be in there best interest to go there.
GOOD HEALTH TO YOU,
Coit Black D.C.
