Let’s cap fees doctors can charge for missing an appointment. Since doctors seem to want to schedule months out sometimes shit comes up and we don’t know our schedule months away.
I mean, if you have other shit going on that day, it’s kinda on you to cancel or reschedule your appointment before whatever cutoff they have instead of just not going.
You made the commitment to be at your appointment at the scheduled time, and if you no show that’s time that could have been spent seeing another patient and money they can’t make because of your actions.
I’ve never had an issue if something came up the day of and I needed to reschedule, as long as I called the moment I knew I might not make it.
This is true, but if I made an appointment for 9, how come I don’t see anyone but the nurse for two hours?
Seems like the doctor doesn’t have a commitment to take care of my problem at the scheduled time.
how come I don’t see anyone but the nurse for two hours?
- Because the doctor showed up late.
- They overbooked / double booked (maybe with a last minute urgent caller or maybe just because they know they will have so many no shows.)
- Maybe the medical assistants called out and the processing time for people is backed up.
- Maybe they decided to flirt with a patient or two or took an extra long bathroom break.
- Maybe they had a family emergency and had to step out or take a call.
- Maybe a patient called in with a critical need and they had to prioritize that because it’s a life and death situation or something.
- Maybe they farted and it wasn’t just a fart.
- Maybe they don’t like you.
- Maybe their car was towed because their medical bills are piling up with insane interest and they weren’t able to work as much as they needed to make the bills the last few months and they needed to take a bicycle
- Maybe they got an OUI and lost their license
- Aliens
Pick one, or many.
The system is overwhelmed and you are scheduled months out because there are so many people waiting ahead of you. If you cancel appropriately that spot can be given to someone else that is waiting. As a patient I want higher punitive fees on people that don’t cancel appropriately - not to stick it to them but to encourage them to actually call ahead and cancel so more spots can open up. This is not the same as junk fees.
Full disclosure: Trump bad! Biden good!
Impressive considering he reports directly to MBNA.
The article misrepresents it a bit because he didn’t just back it. He actually WROTE that bill.
Don’t forget this article:
How Joe Biden helped build a financial system that’s great for Delaware banks and terrible for the rest of us.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/11/biden-bankruptcy-president/
BAPCPA made it harder for consumers to file for Chapter 7 by imposing a “means test” for Chapter 7 eligibility, and by substantially increasing the cost of filing for bankruptcy.
BAPCPA’s passage was one of Biden’s long-sought goals as a senator. Not only did Biden vote for the legislation four times between 1998 and 2005, but he was so singularly committed to its success that he inserted it into a foreign-relations bill in 2000, and later was the sole Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote for the bill.
Biden also consistently voted against efforts to soften BAPCPA’s blow on vulnerable populations
Lmao
Full disclosure: TRUMP bad! Biden GOOD!.
It’s why I never voted for that piece of shit. The very architect of my indentured servitude (presumably but not demonstrably) wanted and wants my vote. Wouldn’t even piss on him if he was on fire. On fire much like Aaron Bushnell who set himself on fire trying to break through this country’s propaganda wall to bring attention to a literal genocide enabled by the executive orders from this same piece of shit Zionist.
How far gone is electoralism in the US when the incumbent can run virtually unopposed while enthusiastically enabling a historically brutal genocide?
Fun days ahead!
Disappointed in the comments here so far. There’s a cardinal rule of improv that also works well for many other things in life, politics included: “yes, and”.
This is a great change that will save folks money and make the country just a little bit fairer. Celebrate that, and then use the momentum to push for more. This builds alliances and a shared vision, instead of devolving into petty squabbles around direction.
The problem is that supporters of the "business as usual politicians such as this (or pardoning federal inmates convicted of marijuana possession of which there were zero) hold things up like this whenever one criticizes them in order to claim that they’re doing so much to help the country.
Throwing scraps on the floor in order to get better polling numbers before an election isn’t serving the people.
Then criticize them then and have them stay on topic, and I’ll be right there with ya. Right now though, they’re not using it as a bludgeon. It’s just a nice win. Do you not see how your approach will lead to nothing but cynicism over time? Even if you strive not to, you will begin to view every win as some sort of maneuver to get one over on you.
Biden started the momentum for capping late fees over a year ago. He mentioned it in his State of the Union address. This is just how government works. I don’t think having some progress made in March of an election year after initiating desire to make progress over a year ago is scaps on the floor. It is competent governing.
Full disclosure: Trump bad! Biden GOOD!
You’re disappointed but personally, it’s hard NOT to feel a great deal of schadenfreude when:
the guy who, for his entire career, has openly accepted bribes in exchange for legislation that is economically violent toward his own constituents now presumably wants the exact same constituents he sold out to vote for him
and is using small, meaningless crumbs to gain that vote when he could have just NOT ENABLED A GENOCIDE.
If this situation doesn’t make you a true believer about there being no hope, I honestly don’t know what will. I lost hope in 2016 and have just been laughing through the bullshit since then. It’s exactly as real as pro wrestling at this point.
You can please some of the people some of the time, but none of the people all of the time.
Like they’re going to just take the lack of those fee profits off the bottom line. Look forward to the new and/or increased yearly fees now.
Is your suggestion to just continue to pay the companies whatever they ask for without a fight?
It wasn’t a suggestion at all.
I was just saying that we, the consumer are going to end up paying for it somehow or another.
How about fucking “convenience fees” when I do shit like pay my fucking rent?
Always real “convenient” that there’s a charge for paying your bills.
Maybe you do know, but in case you don’t, the “convenience fee” is (usually) just the price the vendor has to pay to process a credit card transaction. Because in order to accept credit cards as payment in the first place, they have to pay the credit card network for the privilege.
Providing the exact same service to you is more expensive for them based entirely on the method you use to pay. You bet they’re going to pass that extra expense onto you. The alternative is raising their service charge to eat the cost and screwing over people who pay with check or cash. Which is what most retail stores tend to do.
Though, I agree, I’d rather they just do the fucking math and charge a rate that covers their operating expenses. It’s shouldn’t be my problem to pay their itemized expenses. Just know that if they did so, we’ll be charged the same total either way.
It’s a similar argument with tipping culture. “Oh, you have to tip, employees rely on it to make ends meet!” Sure, but why is that my problem? If the business can’t create a business model that properly pays for the expenses it needs to function, they should go out of business. Raise prices. I’ll pay the same as the tip, fine, just stop playing these frivilous smoke and mirror games with my bill.
We used to pay our rent in 15-20 installments, one every day or two. The office of the apartment building we lived in was on the way to our apartment, so it wasn’t any inconvenience for us to just drop a check in their drop box when we passed by, but I like to think it was mildly irritating for them to have to deal with the book-keeping. They asked us not to on multiple occasions but their only online option had a small “convenience charge” attached, so… No, thank you. I’d be happy to use it if they paid me a “convenience fee” for not making them process 20 checks every month.
That sounds like a nightmare for bookkeeping… I’m not sure if it’s genius, evil, or both.
How did you keep track of which checks were cashed, and which ones were pending???
Our bank had a really nice web interface for that. We could just go to the website and see all of the checks, the amounts, and the dates they were cashed, and we weren’t using checks for any other purpose, so there wasn’t anything else diluting the list. They could have made it a hassle for us by selectively “losing” some occasionally, I suppose, but they never did.
The real issue is that the apartment building is charged a fee by their payment processor to use electronic payments, and they didn’t want to pay it. It is a convenience fee for the bank customer (the building) because they have to do less work cashing checks.
It’s stupid to try to pass that to people living in the building. Most personal bank accounts allow you to pay automatically with a check that’s mailed for free. Paying by check is not inconvenient for individuals, it’s only inconvenient for the person cashing all the checks.
Right but it saves labor in the office, and the cost of dealing with bounced checks, and the accounting is much easier when payments are made online, so the landlord ought not put the gross cost into the rent. It’s cost and savings to the landlord, likely netting out to nothing, or a savings on the online accounts.
In a small restaurant, I understand cash discount. They are gonna have to count the drawer at the end of the night either way. In an apartment building, no. That’s charging people for saving you time and effort, it’s a junk fee.
The issue is further up the chain but it’s an issue nonetheless. Banks want to go back to physical transactions about as much as people do, so in reality they should be charging for the physical to get people to move to digital.
It’s safer, faster, and encourages more spending, just like a credit card does.
