… a personal injury attorney explains.
The last employer I had before I retired way back in 1994 allowed any medical expenses you incurred in the last quarter of the year to count towards the next year’s deductible. Apparently a lot of people weren’t going to the doctor towards the end of the year, and It was more expense to treat whatever problem they had if they waited until January to see the doctor.
intercst
Us “insiders” always said don’t get injured or sick in July. That is when the Peter Principle takes place on a massive scale in the medical field, med students become interns, interns become residents, residents become fellows, and residents/fellows hand up their shingle in private practice. So everyone is in a new role and has a little bit of uncertainty and self doubt no matter how well you were trained. I remember my first call weekend in private practice I had an oh crap moment when it dawned on me that there was no backup to call for help. I was the backup.
Did it change behaviour any? I think you’d need to shift the holiday season to July (when most personal injury lawyers would say is a bad time of year for any hospital admissions) for that to happen.
Consistently in my office (and most everyone else in my medical building) had a major slowdown between just before Thanksgiving till after the New Year as folk found better uses for their time and money than their health and well-being
As usual, a timely topic (just spent an hour at the cardiovascular unit at the University hospital getting a workup for “clearance” for my upcoming lapiplasty …which I realise I badly need right now but didn’t want surgery and recovery messing with The Holidays when planning ahead and it seemedmore elective) I’m wondering how much this “July Effect” can happen at other times now that so many hospital groups are contracting out services to private groups…and I’m not talking about janitorial or catering!!
Take anaesthesia. Here in Colorado, there’s a massive anaesthiology group that provides warm bodies to most (all?) of the hospital networks. Both gigs that my husband’s had over the last 7 years have their anaesthiology needs contracted with them…and they have a system where they all rotate. So odd…but, in practical terms, it means that my husband has rarely had the same anaesthesiologist more than twice (if that) for any of his procedure. It’s oftentimes just like having a newbie from the perspective of knowing where stuff is and how it works.
Did you experience this @JLC ?
No. Large corporate anesthesia companies were just beginning when I retired so fortunately didn’t have to deal with that fiasco. I did know some people that worked in large local groups that covered 2 or 3 small hospitals and they would rotate coverage either on a weekly or monthly basis. The working theory is to “spread the pain” because each place does something that some people don’t like to do.