‘Shopping for Doctors’

Your editorial was appropriate and timely.

As a family practitioner of medicine for 40 years in every type of setting, I do firmly believe patients should shop around for doctors and appropriate fees. It is, indeed, difficult at the present time to find any publication with fee lists of individual doctors. It would truly be ideal if there were such lists in the future. A patient can then more easily choose a doctor based on a fee charges as one of the criteria.

Patients should definitely ask a doctor in advance about fees. Frank communication between patient and physician makes for good relations and future understandings! The opposite can well occur without this clear knowledge.

All doctors are not the same, as the editorial surmises, and a doctor’s medical abilities are certainly not tied in to the level of cost. The ideal situation would be that a well-qualified doctor should charge fair fees “tinged” with a personal understanding of that patient’s ability to pay the fee.

The editorial further notes that it will be interesting to see what happens when the state begins distributing the price lists this summer. I personally think it will enlighten both physicians and patients. Having determined which doctors charge how much, one can then proceed to qualify the doctor on a professional basis.

The catch is: What doctor shall I choose and how will I qualify him or her?

There are many excellent doctors who charge fair and “competitive fees” and certainly it is factual (as the editorial quoted from the Maryland Medical Assn. stated.) Paying higher fees does not necessarily insure higher quality care and paying lower fees does not necessarily sacrifice the quality care and paying lower fees does not necessarily sacrifice the quality of care!

For me the editorial was thought-provoking. One disturbing factor remains. Why couldn’t the editorial’s suggestions also be applied to attorneys, architects, dentists, contractors, etc.?

FLOYD A. NASSIF MD

Glendale