You’ve no doubt heard it a million times: it pays to shop around.
It’s great advice, whether you’re looking to spend a few dollars or wanting to purchase big ticket items. From clothes to jewellery, cars to electrical goods, beauty, technology, accommodation, sporting equipment and airfares, you can save yourself money by taking the time to shop around, get quotes, or ask for a better price.
But what you may never have thought of (because I know that we certainly hadn’t), is that it also pays to shop around for your medical specialist.
Newsflash: You Can Choose Your Specialist!
The standard procedure for seeing a specialist is to visit your GP first, who will then provide you with a referral to a relevant specialist. Usually it’s somebody they have worked with, or referred clients to before.
If it is an urgent matter, they may ring around specialists while you are still there to try and get the earliest appointment possible.
And that’s it. You get your referral and dutifully trot off to the specialist chosen by your doctor.
But did you know there can be a vast difference in price?
Recently, the hubster needed a procedure to remove a skin cancer, which required a skin graft. He was referred to a specialist, and the quote came back at $4500.
Needless to say we were quite shocked, because this particular procedure did not even require an overnight stay! This was simply the cost of the surgeon, the anaesthetist, and the use of the operating rooms.
So the hubster phoned a couple of specialists recommended by friends – and came back with a quote which saved us over a thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money in anyone’s book!
All it took was a phone call to the GP to explain the situation, and he was given a referral to the specialist with the best price.
We saved over $1000 for the price of a couple of phone calls.
It just goes to show, it pays to shop around – even when it comes to your medical treatment and care!
Did you know you could shop around for a specialist?!
I agree that it’s good to take an active approach when it comes to your own health care. It’s great that you were able to find another specialist through the recommendation of friends and save so much on the surgery costs. A few years ago I went through a bad time and wanted to have some counselling. I searched the websites of various local psychology practices and found that most included details about their various practitioners and the methods they used. I selected an older female psychologist that I thought would meet my needs then went to my GP to ask for a referral (I had to go through the usual mental health protocols). My GP was happy to give me the referral and the psychologist turned out to be really brilliant and helped me a lot.
I think in some ways doctors have become “god like” and so we don’t question them … but they are human and fallible (as per the 2 doctors that didn’t diagnose hubby’s skin cancer), and perhaps don’t understand what it’s like to be on a budget too!
Great advice Janet. We just cancelled the hospital cover on our insurance because it’s just to expensive. It’s becoming too expensive for average people. Fingers crossed we don’t get sick x
It’s a real dilemma isn’t it Pinky.
We always forget don’t we and just trust the advice of the referrer. We have been in a similar boat with hubbies hip. Thankfully he has the right person now!
It just seemed strange to me that we shop around for everything else, but not when it comes to our health care! Hope your hubby’s hip is okay – what happened?