Kathy asks,
"My question to you all, is it ethical to charge someone when you
can't
give her either a diagnosis or suggestions to affect change for the
better? When there has been no benefit to the mother in having seen
you."

Without getting into whether what was reportedly done by the LC
during the consult (which is definitely a subject for discussion),
my question is-When you see a doctor, are you charged based on
whether or not he is able to "cure" what ails you?  You are charged
for the visit.  If you don't feel you were helped, you may very well
seek another opinion, but very few people would ask for thier money
back.  They might complain to the doc and or to whatever clinic or
office he/she is part of about the nature of the visit.  A doctor
who is giving sub-standard care would, hopefully, eventually find
that patients are no longer coming to see him/her or may find that
they are no longer welcome as part of the clinic or medical group.

I think this is part of the problem when we don't see ourselves as
health care professionals.  Too often we still see ourselves as
"extended volunteers".  We may still feel more comfortable with an
approach like a donation box where we ask moms to "drop a little
something in if you feel I helped you", but this is not how
professionals operate.  When we went from offering outpatient visits
as a free service to charging for such visits, I was a little
uncomfortable thinking that moms would be mad at us for charging if
we weren't able to wave a magic wand and instantly solve her
problem.  This has not been the case.  Charges are handled like any
other outpatient visit at the hospital-lab draws, therapy, etc.  It
helps, of course, that we don't personally handle the "business" end
of things.  Baby is admitted like any other outpatient and the
paperwork, billing insurance etc. is handled like all other patient
accounts.  I can see this may be harder to adjust to for private
practice LCs.

Winnie

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