<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, Verdana">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by L3:
In the state of California, is it legal for doctor's offices to charge for completing their portion of disability forms (basically signing the form)...these charge are above and beyond the payment for the office visit. this seems to be a trend in the medical community...anybody got stuff to share?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
My response:
Any time a doctor has to set "pen to paper" that doctor is entitled to be paid for the time spent doing so. It's not just signing, it's reviewing the document, reading the questions, filling in the diagnosis, filling in the treatment plan, and everything else.
Let's look at it this way, if a patient merely paid in cash, then there wouldn't be any forms, and the doctor could get to the next patient that much sooner. But, the reality is, is that a doctor must spend a good portion of his/her day taking care of many forms that different insurance companies require, and that amount of time should not be "donated." Someone's got to pay for that otherwise "dead time."
IAAL
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