Don’t you hate it when people become reasonable just when you have come up with an awesome way of dealing with them?
I have an example. My wife recently went to visit the doctor. While doing the whole checkup thing, he gave her a brief thirty second lecture on getting more exercise and eating better. Pretty much what happens with most people when they visit a doctor.
Well it turns out that he didn‘t think that this was part of the regular doctor visit. He thought that the brief lecture on a healthy lifestyle was far above and beyond normal doctor behavior. So much so, that he charged extra for it.
I’ll repeat that real fast in case it didn’t sink in properly.
He charged my wife extra, on top of what she paid for a checkup, because he gave a brief lecture on healthy lifestyle.
He felt that this exceptional service was worth forty-five dollars. I know doctor’s services are valuable, but that’s more than a dollar a second. It’s not like my wife asked “Could you throw in an extra lecture for me this time?”
We were a bit surprised to receive a second bill for what we believed to be a normal doctors visit. My wife called the office to complain, and I wrote a letter.
Dear My Wife’s Doctor,
I understand that you charged us an extra $45 dollars for the brief discussion of the importance of nutrition and exercise. Even though every single doctor in the U.S. gives that speech at every visit, you saw fit to charge an extra fee for it.
Well fair enough, you do deserve to be compensated for your time and effort. However I have a suggestion. In the future, maybe, just maybe, if you stop trying to attach extra fees to the bill in the hope that people will pay them without question; you will probably get more return patients. With a steady flow of return patients you will have more regular income and will not need to rely upon cheap tricks with your billing department to make ends meet.
Enclosed you will find my bill for “Business Advice” set at the very reasonable rate of $90 dollars. Please pay at your earliest convenience.
But no, before I could send the letter, the doctor’s office went and apologized and canceled the bill.
Inconsiderate bastards.
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