the Price of Doctors

The price covered the copay for an annual checkup for one adult with our family physician.

Being a licensed family physician, she can diagnose illnesses, prescribe drugs, perform minor outpatient surgeries, give referrals to specialists, and other stuff. You know, the usual doctor-y type things. Most of it's covered by health insurance, though various procedures have different copay costs (and sometimes different doctors have different copay costs for the same procedure.)

My employer requires a routine physical at least once a year as part of the terms of employment. It's mostly for insurance reasons and the employer only gets a form from the insurance company stating that the cost for insuring employee X is Y dollars.

We've been going to our doctor for a few years and we've been pretty happy with her services. She's rather young and only recently out of residency and into private practice, so she doesn't have tons of regular patients, and her waiting room is rarely packed (unless it's cold season), but with her demeanor and obvious competence I have no doubt that demand for her services will increase with time.

With a family doctor bedside manner is at least as important as professional competence, since a family doctor only tends to treat the various every day niggles. And you certainly don't want to make regular visits to a rude doctor. Because a family doctor needs to be able to recognize when things aren't simply minor niggles, a fair bit of professional training and upkeep needs to be done. Those things are usually a matter of public record, so don't be afraid to check up on potential family doctors before picking one.