an unexpected con to living here :-(

I just found out that doctor visits cost more here! About a week ago I saw online that David's visit (to get a new prescription, ADHD meds only get prescribed a month at a time) cost way more than I was used to. I wasn't sure how much of that was being a new patient, how much was being in a more expensive area, or if we were just unlucky in our choice of doctor. And I wasn't really sure how to find out.

I started by calling the doctor's office, and they went through a list of various charges (established patient 10 min, established patient 15 min, etc.). But then there's an Aetna approved charge, and Aetna told me on the phone that I would have to call each doctor's office individually to find out what theire contracted prices were. That was going to suck! So I started looking on the DocFind to find which doctors to call, and I found a little tab I've never noticed before - "View Rates for Aetna Members." Yay! That made it way easier!

So then my bit of OCD (don't we all have a bit?) took over, and I looked at the first 47 Family Practice doctors close to our zip code. And made a nice excel sheet to show the costs listed - New Patient Office Visit for Moderate Problems, 3 levels of Established Patient Visit, and Well Visit for an Established Patient ages 18-39. I grouped together the ones that are in the same office and have the same charges (not always the case), so my averages aren't perfect and it isn't worth really figuring out, but it looks like the place we chose is right around average - $159.02 for the new patient visit when the average is $161.96.

Nope, can't do it. I had to figure out the actual average. It's a bit higher - $168.89. Yuck. There are a few that are $141.99, maybe I'll drive by those and make sure they look okay.

Oh yeah, so the reason this is so sad? I looked up Dr. Peterson, who we've been seeing since my first prenatal appointment with David, so April 2002. His charge for that same visit? $114.17! Did we just get lucky in Utah? Nope, I looked at 5 or 6 other random offices, and all were either that same cost or $118. Dang it!

Obviously we're not going to be new patients all the time, but the other charges are all higher. The established patient low-moderate problems is $103.71 at the place we went, $92.60 at the cheapest ones in the area, and $62.04 at Dr. Peterson. A Rapid Strep Test is $14.37 in Utah and $28.82 here. Even a Urine Pregnancy test is $7.51 there and $15.20 here. Rude!

I guess we just better not get sick.