Perhaps you have nicer plumbers where you live, but I don’t think this is a widespread practice.
I don’t know what sort of work you do, but let’s say you are a salesman who gets $15 a hour plus commission. You take a hour to make a pitch to a potential new client, but you don’t land the account. Does your employer owe you $15 for the work you did, even though your company got no specific benefit from how you spent your time?
Yes, of course.
That example presupposes that they owe you $15, since you are paid an hourly wage.
The potential customer owes you nothing in those cases. And that’s a big difference, many professionals are not making a sales pitch, they are offering an expert’s opinion. In the case of the OP if the surgeon simply doesn’t do that type of operation he should have informed the patient before hand, referred him to someone else, and not charged anything. However, he may have been evaluating the case referred from a GP and given his professional opinion on the type of surgery required, and it it’s reasonable for him to charge for that even if he can’t perform the surgery himself.
To the OP, how much is your health worth to you?
Dr. #1 made his best informed guess and sent your Dr. #2. Then Dr. #2 made an even more informed guess and is sending your to Dr. #3. I would be happy I that I was getting closer to the right solution.
If you are going to start kvetching about the cost of health care in general, I’ve got a whole country I can point you to.
Because… you were working during that time.
The doctor was working, too.
And the related, but not quite the same “I’m an orthopedic surgeon, and I do knee surgeries, but more in the category of injury repairs. Replacements aren’t something I’m very experienced in. I suggest you see Dr. So-and-So who does 20 of those a month.”
In that case, if he just foists you off on another surgeon like that, and still bills you for that, I’d be more pissed at his office staff and pre-screening procedures than at his visit behavior. If you were coming to him for a replacement, his staff ought to have said that he really doesn’t do many of those, but he recommends Dr. So-and-So, without you coming in for a visit at all. Letting you come in and then charging you for that kind of thing is kind of sketchy. Not in the charging you for the visit, but in actually letting you schedule a visit for that kind of thing at all.
OTOH, if you come in, and he yanks and pulls on your knee and does an examination and says “Well, I think it’s less of a repair and more of a replacement situation, unlike your original doc. You need to go see Dr. So-and-So, as replacements aren’t really something I’m experienced in, but she is.”, then he’s totally within his ethical and moral rights to charge you for that visit.
Would you have preferred that he attempt the procedure anyway, so that he could justify charging you for the visit?
Sure. But your agreement with your employer is dissimilar from your agreement with a consulting specialist. If the doctor doesn’t offer the service you need, it’s his office’s job to tell you so before the fact. If you call a plumbing company to replace your leaky illodium discombobulator and they send a plumber out to tell you they don’t offer that service for a $125 fee, that’s not “working.” That’s essentially fraud. Now, if you call them to fix “a leak” and they come out, then tell you they don’t do that sort of repair, that’s working.
F-P’s original example is a bit vague, so we don’t know which scenario is closer.
I don’t understand why numerous people have suggested that the surgeon has provided some benefit and “assessment” based on his years of experience etc., when I’ve been pretty explicit that he did not. He added nothing that was not known before he was consulted.
The original doctor said “you have Condition A and need Procedure B, and Dr. C is a capable surgeon who can do it”. I called up Dr. C’s office and said “I have Condition A and need Procedure B” and they said to come on in for a consult. Dr. C did not add anything to the previously known assessment that I had Condition A and needed Procedure B. The only thing he said is that he wasn’t capable of performing Procedure B on me (I assumed at the time that he was saying this was a more complex case than most, but in retrospect I don’t recall with certainty if he said that explicitly. At any rate, he definitely said the issue was that I needed more expertise in that specific procedure and that “I know my limitations”). I walked out of that guy’s office without having been enlightened in any sort of way about my condition or what I needed, or about anything else other than this guy’s limitations which are of no interest or use to me.
I assume the posters saying “hey how would you like it if the guy decided to do the procedure anyway …” are being facetious. Obviously I wouldn’t like it, but I don’t see why people should pay other people for the privilege of not having them perform surgeries that they’re not capable of doing.
I’m surprised that people think other tradesmen would bill in such circumstances. That is absolutely not the case in my experience. That said, if it’s SOP for doctors to bill in such cases, then it makes no difference what other professions would do - or whether there’s any logic to it, frankly. Each business has its own business model, and you need to work with that. I’m just somewhat surprised that a field would have this type of business model, but if it does it does.
He told you “you have a more complex case and he can’t deal with it”. It’s that part about it being a more complex case. If your recommending physician didn’t know that then the surgeon did add something you didn’t know before. If he did know that you should be complaining about the recommending physician.
“More complex” is a relative term. It was “more complex” than this particular guy was comfortable dealing with. That doesn’t have any meaning or add any knowledge beyond that.
[The recommending physician is actually a pretty big expert in the field and knew how complex the procedure was or wasn’t in my case. He does - and has done - the procedure himself. But it’s something that can need to be done periodically, and he was trying to find me someone closer to home than he is.]
Actually, the OP doesn’t say there was a referral to Dr. #3. See below.
That very much sounds like the patient was left to hunt for “a specialist.”
With an explanation and referral, payment of a reasonable fee would probably not be a problem.
F-P, you might want to pass this on to your referring physician, asking for an updated referral. Perhaps suggest that he call #2 about the “complications” because he didn’t say anything specific to you, but might be more forthcoming with another doctor. And he’d also be better able to refer you to a specialist than, say the phone book would be.
Also, if #2 can’t do anything very complex, #1 would want to know.
It does sound like you have a beef with one of those two doctors, probably your recommending physician who should have supplied enough information that the surgeon could have told you to see someone else right off the bat.
I agree with you about tradesmen, basically because what they do is more about quoting prices than providing analysis. But if they traveled any significant distance to come give you that price I wouldn’t be surprised if they charged. I would be surprised if they didn’t let you know about the fee for a visit ahead of time.
F-P – I’ll be a little less flippant and share my thoughts in a more organized way.
My understanding is that you consulted this physician about a particular procedure, and that the physician, upon learning of some related circumstances, decided that the procedure was too difficult or complex for him.
My way of thinking about this is like if one needed to have his appendix removed, he could perform that, but there was an underlying issue in one’s intestine that made the procedure more complex, so the physician felt he could not perform the appendectomy to the standard he felt comfortable with.
From your point of view, I can see that you received no value from the appointment. You knew you needed the surgery, you knew about the underlying condition, and the physician did not advance you any closer to a cure or a better understanding of the procedure or the complexities of the other condition. I can very much see your point there.
However, I also gather that the physician would do the appendectomy if not for the complication. Is that right?
In that case, I think the doctor applied his expertise and did work for which he deserves to be compensated, even though you received no satisfaction from his work.
Since the comparison comes up, let’s say I call an HVAC guy because my house is unusually cold. He investigates the situation and finds that my European custom-made heating pump has an issue with the gonkulator that he has never worked on, and says he’s not the right guy for the job. I think he’s entitled to charge me for his time and professional judgment, even though my house remains cold.