My home renovations biz is soooo slow, what else? (Victor: house, buy)
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Yes, I think you read it wrong. My friend pays the required co-pay but will not pay any remainder of the bill that is not covered by the insurance. He makes that clear upfront too. Of course, you can't get blood out of a stone and he has no money to pay.
He has no dental insurance so he makes sure he knows exactly what will be charged and he bargains before the services are rendered. I guess some dentists are more than willing to negotiate.
So is he committing a class C felony? Sure, and Im Mother Teresa.
If he warns them beforehand, then they should know enough to keep the charges within the confines of the insurance, so if they don't, it's their bad.
As for his dental situation, if there is no insurance involved, then he and the dentist can come to any agreement they want regarding payment. He could even barter services with them for payment. That is not against the law. It happens more often than you think.
No, but I do have a friend who negotiates prices with his dentist and doctors. It's amazing how they will "deal" when you are firm about not paying their full prices. He is very upfront with billing staff at his doctor's offices; telling them he will pay the co-pay and NOTHING else. If the insurance doesn't cover the rest of the bill, he will not pay it.
you can try to redifine what your friend actually does now, but this is what YOU wrote about their strategy. If you had all of the info, you certainly did not share it. There is a LEGAL way for doctors to waive out of pocket fees, deductibles and/or copays. However you did not state that your friend & his physicians are playing the game by the rules. You said he tells the "billing staff" which is NOT the appropriate people to make the decision on behalf of the doctor that holds the professional license. And the insurance gets submitted differently when a doctor decides to take this path with a patient, in fact unless the doctor gets the approval from the insurance carrier FIRST, they should not offer this option. It is not something that can be done across the board for all patients.
Since you failed to state the very important details about the example you gave, like managed care, out of network, medicaid- its really bad, useless advice to give on a message board.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gpsma
Can you cite some references. I think you are full of it.
And yes, I'm a big believer in doctors/dentists where there is NO INSURANCE involved giving good "deals" to patients. Discounts for pre-payment, payment in full at time of service and lowering fees for multiple procedures done on the same day.
In fact I'm lecturing to 50+ dentists for 4 hours tomorrow in Woodbury and I will always suggest this as a fair, legal way to approach business.
To clarify your assumption, I am NOT a "billing clerk", last time I checked they don't hold a state professional license.
For what its worth, consumers running around looking for bottom barrel prices on premier services or goods because of "the economy" isn't helping anything & its incrediably short sighted. Having been a business owner for many years I do not agree with this mentality. If you want to pay less, generally speaking you should expect less. Coupons and sales are great, but defining your own price point on everything(particularly Mom & Pop businesses) will only cause more small businees failure, loss of more jobs, more vacant real estate & so on.
Well here I am...Surprised to see my thread popped back up again. A lot has changed since three years ago. There's some truth in what everyone says here.
There's truth in the fact that some people do shop price but people also want quality. The question remains....are they willing to pay for it and how much quality do they want? There really are many ways to do they same job without sacrificing quality. The problems arise when a customer is promised one thing and gets something else. I see it happen all too often. I've probably been called onto jobs to fix other builders screw ups more times than I'd like to.. Funny thing is...more times than not I find out the builder that the client hired wasn't licensed or the client wasn't sure if they were. I've been told, "well, we signed a contract".
And that means they were licensed? People really do get taken but more than half the time it's their own fault.
I've been pretty busy...mainly because I do high quality work and don't look to soak anyone. I treat folks the way I'd like to be treated. If my dentist doesn't treat me right..well...theres plenty more dentists to choose from.
In this economy you better treat people right. You can only screw a person once before the word gets out.
Like the saying goes, "Treat someone right and they'll tell ten other people, mistreat someone once and they'll tell a thousand people".
I know for me my prices have dropped...not that they were high before but I see how it keeps me working.
I never expected to get rich bangin' nails. I do it because it pays the bills and just as important...I LOVE what I do
Sounds like things are going well Andy, I'm so glad to hear it. While its not as busy as it was 2002-2005, I think things have picked up a bit for the home improvement industry. I'm glad you're riding out the storm!
Well here I am...Surprised to see my thread popped back up again. A lot has changed since three years ago. There's some truth in what everyone says here.
There's truth in the fact that some people do shop price but people also want quality. The question remains....are they willing to pay for it and how much quality do they want? There really are many ways to do they same job without sacrificing quality. The problems arise when a customer is promised one thing and gets something else. I see it happen all too often. I've probably been called onto jobs to fix other builders screw ups more times than I'd like to.. Funny thing is...more times than not I find out the builder that the client hired wasn't licensed or the client wasn't sure if they were. I've been told, "well, we signed a contract".
And that means they were licensed? People really do get taken but more than half the time it's their own fault.
I've been pretty busy...mainly because I do high quality work and don't look to soak anyone. I treat folks the way I'd like to be treated. If my dentist doesn't treat me right..well...theres plenty more dentists to choose from.
In this economy you better treat people right. You can only screw a person once before the word gets out.
Like the saying goes, "Treat someone right and they'll tell ten other people, mistreat someone once and they'll tell a thousand people".
I know for me my prices have dropped...not that they were high before but I see how it keeps me working.
I never expected to get rich bangin' nails. I do it because it pays the bills and just as important...I LOVE what I do
Do you find that potential customers in this economy (still slow) are being extra picky about who they choose and still shop their plans around?
Do you find yourself catering to them more than ever because you're fighting for jobs? Have you found yourself in contention with another contractor and did your best to win the bid (not just by being cheapest)?
Just trying to see how much contractors care to fight nowadays or if they still think their work should speak for itself... it's slow season (winter) and there doesn't appear there's much work to begin with. Would think the customer is holding all the cards.
For what its worth, consumers running around looking for bottom barrel prices on premier services or goods because of "the economy" isn't helping anything & its incrediably short sighted. Having been a business owner for many years I do not agree with this mentality. If you want to pay less, generally speaking you should expect less. Coupons and sales are great, but defining your own price point on everything(particularly Mom & Pop businesses) will only cause more small businees failure, loss of more jobs, more vacant real estate & so on.
All I can say is "dog eat dog!"
We can say the same thing about EMPLOYERS who are shamefully nickel and diming potential (and current) employees "because of the economy."
For what its worth, consumers running around looking for bottom barrel prices on premier services or goods because of "the economy" isn't helping anything & its incrediably short sighted. Having been a business owner for many years I do not agree with this mentality. If you want to pay less, generally speaking you should expect less.
You obviously aren't well schooled in economics. Consumers should NOT be paying for goods and services at the same rate as when the economy was booming. Contractors notoriously overcharged when times were good. They now have to suck it up or go out of business.
For what its worth, consumers running around looking for bottom barrel prices on premier services or goods because of "the economy" isn't helping anything & its incrediably short sighted. Having been a business owner for many years I do not agree with this mentality. If you want to pay less, generally speaking you should expect less. Coupons and sales are great, but defining your own price point on everything(particularly Mom & Pop businesses) will only cause more small businees failure, loss of more jobs, more vacant real estate & so on.
For what its worth, consumers running around looking for bottom barrel prices on premier services or goods because of "the economy" isn't helping anything & its incrediably short sighted.
I understand where you are coming from. A lot of consumers will go with the lower price and get shafted in the end. This bait and switch tactic works all the time, or else it wouldn't be utilized. In my family, we call it "penny smart, dollar stupid." Personally, I find NYers highly susceptible to this disease in our society. Fortunately, our universe is not without some sort of fairness. Those people that shop for bargain basement prices always get what they pay for.
It's those people that look for value that usually get more then they pay for. Be a value shopper, not a bargain basement price shopper. You'll be better off in the end.
I made the same mistake several years ago. We were doing an extension on our home, and we shopped around for contractors to build it. One came highly recommend from friends, but to be honest we didnt really consider him bc our friends are very well off and have a tendency to pay alot for things. We went with the low bidder. The recommended contractor even said, the bid was below his cost and couldnt see how it was possible. So we thought we were getting a great deal. Not even 4 weeks into construction we were over budget, everything was an extra from finishes this really pissed us off as we had an itemized quote bc we wanted certain things, there were always problems, it took way longer than quoted, and to be honest we never felt like we had the guys full attention.
We used the recommended contractor on the next improvement we did. You can literally tell the difference when you walk from room to room, its like night and day. Just thought i'd share my experience, you get what you pay for. I will never take the lowest bid again.
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