Arbitrary

Arbitrary. That is what a patient's father just told me our fees were. Arbitrary. He said, "How did you come up with this fee? Seems awfully arbitrary."

I explained to him that our Doctors have been doing this for the better part of 30 years. They can see what needs to be done by looking in a patient's mouth alone. We absolutely, without fail, gather the proper diagnostic tools (x-rays, intra-oral photos and impressions) to confirm what they found but 99.9% of the time they are dead on. There are very few surprises for them. They have treated thousands of patients over the years. There is pretty much nothing new anymore.

AND if the dad was so interested about our willy nilly ways--why didn't he show up here the first time with his kid? Instead, he just took up another chunk of the Doctor's time to have things explained to him. So A--he didn't believe what his wife repeated to him about their son and B--he didn't believe what I had told him about figuring out the fees (which I don't set--I just deliver the news). He was just being a pill.

It's funny because one of our Doctors just had a knee replacement. He was just saying that  he chose the surgeon partly because he had already done 4500 knees. He and his team are experts, right? They have seen every possible knee scenario. Guess what? Our Doctors have successfully treated probably double or even triple that amount of patients. I think it is more than fair to say that they know what they are looking at. Yet--folks are always with the suspicions about fees.

Just for the record--fees are determined based on the estimated length of time it will take to complete the treatment. We are not toiling away on a calculator for each patient. The Doctors figure out a treatment time--24 months, 30 months, 36 months--and the fee is based on that. Certain things take a certain amount of time. It just is what it is. A not too complicated case will take 18 or 24 months. Something more complicated can take 30 and really complicated will take at least 36 months. An estimated treatment time of 36 months will never be done in 12 months--never. They just know these things. Trust, people, trust.

Also for the record--if a patient were a miracle patient and did finish early (which did happen once in all the years I have been here) we refunded the difference. But, if a patient takes 42 months instead of 36 months, just because that can happen sometimes, we don't charge more.

As you can see, this whole topic just angers me. I just can't stand when people are basically accusing us of being greedy. It devalues everything that this profession is about and the work that the Doctors have done to become experts in their field.