On 9 Aug 2004 at 10:14, Susan Teaford wrote: > Re: Charging for telephone calls > > In our small community the overall trend has been to hand over the > phone calls to a fee-for-service nurse triage service. Patients call > the 800 number, charge $30 to their credit card, and get all the > advice they need. We have a written up protocol for meds the nurses > may call in, ie nystatin, auralgan, phenergan. If necessary, the > nurse calls the doc on call. On average, we get called maybe once or > twice a week; no charge but we don't mind because it's so infrequent. > The charge also makes parents think twice about calling, thus > eliminating those calls about routine-for-the-office-hours issues. > Because this is a fairly new concept, the insurance companies didn't > have an issue with it. Life is much quieter; we used to get up to 8-10 > phone calls an hour! > > Susan Teaford, MD > San Luis Obispo CA > What if parents complain that they don't 'have a credit card' or can't afford the service and their kid suffered because of it? Also, who collects the credit card #, the nurse call system? That is what they should have done along time ago instead of charging the dr. the bill and making them collect.