Sir, 500 rs only for talking?

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There is immense cacophony over the internet, television news, paper news, and everywhere else about why is medical care in India so expensive and poor quality.

On the same note, no media channel spares any opportunity to create a smoke screen of villain doctor vs poor/  helpless/ innocent patients. As a matter of fact, negative news is the best seller of all time.

But today lets cut through the smog and try to understand why do doctors charge so much?

It is easy to compare the price of two things if they can be measured or quantified. For eg, one-litre milk is cheaper than one litre of petrol. But it becomes very difficult to compare this that cannot be quantified.

Like movies for example. For one person spending rs. 400 for a Salman Khan movie might be the best use of his hard-earned money. But for some other person, it may be a complete waste of money.

Also, there is the question of ‘willingness’.

No human being wants to spend money unwillingly. That is why bribes are so unwanted. It means paying money when you don’t want to or should not be paying. You could have done wonderful things with that saved money.

(How ever, if you are ‘willing’ to get to know me better, please hit me Here and Here.)

Similarly, it is with diseases. They are unwanted. They make the patient spend money.

Plus, the doctors who treat them also cannot be quantified. Two doctors, both claiming to know the treatment, maybe charging different fees. What is the difference?

• Qualification.

The harder it is to earn the medical degree, more is the expected compensation.

Earning a basic graduation degree in modern medicine like M.B.B.S takes at least 6-7 years of education after 12th std in India. For Post graduation, add another 4 years on an average assuming no drop years. These days, it is not enough to have post graduation alone. Patients wish to see the specific most specialist of their particular disease. “Big doctor of the big toe” if I may. That’s another 3 years at least. So a full grown person of 30 plus is just starting his career as a ‘service provider’.

In India, patients are actually spoilt for choices. They have a cheaper option easily available.

The second, third and lower levels of qualifications like Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Unani also claim to tackle almost all form of diseases. They might be correct in their approach too. But in this age of science, their theories have not been shown to have consistent and safe results. Not enough research has been gone into it to keep it up to date.

Hence their degree programmes are easier to get into. The student still gets to call himself ‘Dr.’ at the end of the course. Also, since most patients are poor, he becomes their messiah by starting into practice early, at cheaper rates, often prescribing the same medicines, though not qualified, but also working under the radar.

• Investment

Not all medical practice cost the same to run. A physician starting out might need less investment compared to surgeon.

Technology, especially medical technology and instruments don’t come cheap. Part of the reason is that, though the doctor’s patients might be poor, the companies selling him the instruments and tools don’t lessen their price in sympathy of poor patients. Hence, teh doctor has to pay full price for buying the services and products, which eventually flows down to his patients, making him look like some greedy monster trying to skim sick unfortunate people.

In reality, he is only trying to recover the investment he had made for providing his patient facilities.

This is where alternative medical branches like ayurveda, homeopathy, etc score high. They have fewer investments of money, hence, their services aren’t that expensive.

• Experience

Lastly, which patient would want to go to a doctor who is not really good at his expertise? no one, right.

But experience comes at a cost of hours, days and years of hard work. And it is for this work done, before meeting you, dear patients that the doctor charges his fee for. Like it is said in another freelancing profession, namely ‘acting’ that ” the money you are being paid now (which seems a huge amount) is for the times you had worked for peanuts previously and still didn’t quit ” 

So, in a similar fashion, 500 rs is not the fees you are paying for talking to your doctor for 50 or 20 minutes. It is essentially for gaining access to the hard work done by the doctor for many year before meeting you on that particular day.

Hope this little write up tells you the doctor’s side of the story.

That’s it from me today.

Let me know your thoughts here and here.

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Peace.