To accomplish certain tasks, we need a little help from our
friends. No one can do it all, although
many of us are more resourceful than others.
Some folks are adventurous and dive into a new arena with
excitement. They may be tinkerers who
aren’t afraid to play with new gadgets.
Sure, they might break some china, but they are apt to widen their skill
set and enrich their lives. Others,
eschew this dive bomb approach and prefer to wade cautiously into new
experiences. Their comfort zones are
narrower. They never break the china,
but their personal growth is likely more stultified.
For some activities, we should simply call upon the
professionals straight away. Here are
some examples of jobs that we should pay others to do for us.
- Cut down a huge dead tree on our front yard.
- Replace damaged roof shingles.
- Investigate why smoke is seeping out of the hood of our car.
- Prepare our last will and testament from www.DIEWITHCASH.com or some similar website.
I realize that not everyone
may agree with my examples above. Many
folks, for example, would have no hesitation to scamper up to the roof with a
tool belt strapped on to do some reshingling.
Have at it. If you ever spot a
man on my roof, trust me, it’s not me.
If a job needs this tool, then keep your fingers and hire a pro.
There are some activities
that we pay others to do, but we shouldn’t have to. It’s not our fault. Certain systems are so complex and byzantine
that a normal individual simply isn’t equipped.
Why should most of us have to pay someone to figure out how much we owe
the government in taxes? I realize that
this absurdity is employment security for the accounting and legal professions,
but it indicates to me that the system is broken. The system should be simple enough that we
can calculate our obligations ourselves.
Similarly, shouldn’t
understanding and paying medical bills be a simple process, similar to paying
all of our other bills? When I receive a
plumber’s bill, leaving aside that his hourly rate might be higher than mine, I
can easily understand the itemized services and how the total charge was calculated. Not so with medical bills. I’m a practicing physician and I cannot
reliably understand my own medical bills. Medical bills occupy a unique
universe, which is not governed by reason or logic. I will assume that every reader has had
similar experiences.
We need a modern day Rosetta
Stone to decipher our encrypted medical bills.
Of course, we can always call our insurance company directly, which is
guaranteed to be as relaxing and fun as undergoing a rigid sigmoidoscopy. Also, don’t you love the musical phrase,
“please listen carefully as our options have changed”?
Enter the new profession of
Patient Navigators, an emerging occupation that helps the confused citizenry
understand their medical bills. We all
know of many patients who have stacks of bills awaiting payment from
physicians, hospitals, radiologists, pathologists, laboratories, emergency
rooms, etc.,that would overwhelm the most rugged among us. Grappling with medical billing is to tread
onto a treacherous pool of quicksand with no bottom. Leaving aside the
Herculean task of sorting through the morass, there is an inhumanity to expect
sick or recovering patients to be forced into this maze of madness.
The existence and growth of
the Patient Navigator profession is Exhibit A that medical billing needs to be
reformed. With all of the nonsensical ‘reforms’
that have been forced onto the medical profession, Obamacare missed a target
that was overripe for real reform.
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