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This gets more and more bizarre. Billing for "time"? Sounds like you are confusing dentists with attorneys. I would love to now how to bill patients while I am not working on them.
100% true. Medicaid patients live an entitled life. They only care about getting "free" stuff. When I was a resident, I worked in a clinic where 100% of patients were Medicaid. You had to sign up at the beginning of the year to be a comphrensive care patient. For toothache patients who did not sign up, we only did extractions. If a patient needed a root canal, they were referred to the local dental school. I had the following conversation on a ROUTINE basis:
Me: "You need to go to the dental school to get a root canal."
Patient: "I don't have a way to get there."
Me: "Ask a friend/relative to take you, take a bus, take a cab."
Patient: "I'll just call an ambulance because then the state will pay for it."
I've read these boards for months and I just don't understand why you speak like this about former patients of yours. There will always be people who abuse the system but there are also plenty of people who simply cannot afford it. If someone pays for private medical insurance (mine is about $400/month) and then uses it to save tens of thousands are they being entitled? My last surgery cost over $40K without insurance. Am I entitled because they paid for it? Dental insurance just does not offer the same benefits.
Dental health is a major part of health care and I cannot understand why medical insurance won't cover it. I have dental insurance and the annual cap is $1000. I needed a crown due to an accident and it didn't even cover the whole thing. If I was 20 years old and living alone and someone had said to me, well you can either pay $2K for the crown or we can pull it out for $100, I sure know what I would have had to do.
You come off as very elitist, which is a shame because you seem to have valuable information to share. Medical and dental insurance are very different and most people simply do not have the finances if an emergency happens and they have to come up with a ton of $$ all of the sudden. My husband was hit by a car as a pedestrian and needed $8K in dental work. Now even if you're far away from qualifying from medicaid it doesn't mean you have that sort of money IMMEDIATELY.
It's a shame when doctors and dentists lose their humanity and start thinking of poor people as not being worth their compassion. Are you obligated to treat them for free? Of course not, but you also don't need to have such a terrible attitude about it. I'm not surprised that the dentists on these forums don't use their real names, no one would go to them.
I've read these boards for months and I just don't understand why you speak like this about former patients of yours. There will always be people who abuse the system but there are also plenty of people who simply cannot afford it. If someone pays for private medical insurance (mine is about $400/month) and then uses it to save tens of thousands are they being entitled? My last surgery cost over $40K without insurance. Am I entitled because they paid for it? Dental insurance just does not offer the same benefits.
Dental health is a major part of health care and I cannot understand why medical insurance won't cover it. I have dental insurance and the annual cap is $1000. I needed a crown due to an accident and it didn't even cover the whole thing. If I was 20 years old and living alone and someone had said to me, well you can either pay $2K for the crown or we can pull it out for $100, I sure know what I would have had to do.
You come off as very elitist, which is a shame because you seem to have valuable information to share. Medical and dental insurance are very different and most people simply do not have the finances if an emergency happens and they have to come up with a ton of $$ all of the sudden. My husband was hit by a car as a pedestrian and needed $8K in dental work. Now even if you're far away from qualifying from medicaid it doesn't mean you have that sort of money IMMEDIATELY.
It's a shame when doctors and dentists lose their humanity and start thinking of poor people as not being worth their compassion. Are you obligated to treat them for free? Of course not, but you also don't need to have such a terrible attitude about it. I'm not surprised that the dentists on these forums don't use their real names, no one would go to them.
Read the post again. I am talking about people who are abusing the system, as you alluded to. I am not talking about people who are honest, hard-working individuals but maybe have fallen on tough times and need a little help TEMPORARILY to get back on their feet. I am talking about people for whom Medicaid is a way of life and families who have generations on Medicaid.
It's fine if you think I am an elitist and have lost my humanity. I would be more than happy to privately compare my last three years tax returns with you. I guarantee I have made more charitable contributions (as a percentage of income) than you. In fact, just last month I did over $4000 worth of dentistry for FREE because I felt bad for a patient. My suggestion to you is to either volunteer your free time at a Medicaid dental clinic or, even better, go down to the local dental clinic, pick out a patient at random, and offer to write a check on the spot to cover all of their dental needs. Most people are happy to do their social justice fighting on the internet, but can't be bothered to actually lift a finger when push comes to shove.
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