2019.05.03 13:55
Meet the Canadian doctor who prescribes money to low-income patients
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/5/3/18524482/canada-health-doctor-prescribing-money-income-poverty
2019.05.03 14:47
2019.05.04 00:27
I also had number of similar experience while I was active in coronary surgeries ,,-- in those "self-pay patients", undocumented foreigners(불법이민자), travellers who got into urgent cardiac problems. Hospital Bill around 100,000$ for routine cases and they had to write off quite a lot. Sometimes they even needed Defibrillator impalntation(hefty hardware price) on top of CABG (Bad LV + abnormal SAEKG etc), when I would receive a call from VP of Medical Affairs.---
I remeber a Russian patient visiting Chicago, got into MI--multivessel CAD--ended up CABG. Did/could not pay a dime to me nor to the hospital.
When he was leaving USA, he brought me a bottle Of "Dom Perignon". Maybe he knew I am not a drinker--ㅎ ㅎ ㅎ.
2019.05.04 00:43
Thank you, Dr. Choh, for sharing your experience in this regard that
we, doctors, don't like to talk about at any gathering, partly because,
I believe, the subject involves something personal that has no quick solution
or answers to.
As one time medical practitioner, I must say
this Dr. Gary Bloch is a very courageous man
who attempts to face the challenge directly within
his power and imagination.
All the practicing doctors deal with this issue
quite often, I believe, as I did so on numerous occasions
throught decades of my practice career.
I will describe one such case.
One of my patients, a middle aged man, survived acute MI
at home and saw me one week after the event when I confirmed the Dx.
He had no medical insurance so that I instructed him to apply for Medicaid
while making sure he was started on all the appropriate meds.
3 months went by, then he started having postinfarction angina, which indicatess
that he has a high probability of having multivessel cad, that will likely require
cabg. I knew only too well that no hospital would take him as charity case for an
elective cardiac cath. and cabg so that the only way for him to get the access to
cardiac cath and possible cabg was through the ER.
The only thing that I could depend on was the trust he gave me as his doctor,
and I felt compelled to protect his life to the best of my ability.
My instruction to him was very specific after explaining to him whatever he had to know,
which was, " Any time you experience another onset of angina, you must to go to ER
even if sublingual nitroglycerin relieves it."
Just a day later he developed chest pain while praying at his church 5AM.
He went to ER, had cardiac cath which showed 3 vessel cad, and underwent cabg.
Everything went well, and he was discharged a week later.
The hospital bill was $100,000. My patient paid nothing.
The hospital collected what they could from Medicaid.
To say the least, I clearly remember to this day how nervous I was
throughout the course, from the day the patient walked into my office
until the day he was discharged from the hospital.