Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1915 — PHYSICIANS SYSTEMATIZE A PART OF THE BUSINESS SIDE OF THE PROFESSION. [ARTICLE]

PHYSICIANS SYSTEMATIZE A PART OF THE BUSINESS SIDE OF THE PROFESSION.

The-Medical Society Will Maintain a “Won’t Fay" Claes List. It has been an axiom from time immemorial that physicians is a class are poor business men. This has become so from one or all of the following reasons; First, their energy and time is entirely consumed with patients. Secondly, the laws are enacted by lawyers who forgot to make definite provision for the collection of medical accounts. Thirdly, a great many clients have a habit of paying the grocer, the baker and the candlestick maker and then if a little money is left and no plaee dee is found for it they pay a little on account at the doctor's. And fourthly, most physicians do not'enter medicine as a commercial business and therefore neglect that side of the profession. Rensselaer and vicinity is an up-to-date neighborhood anid among other things demands .well trained physicians, and right it should—but the attendance at medical meetings, literature and office equipment, post-graduate courses and .numerous other things require a constant drain of cash. Every physician has four classes of patients, judged financially, namely: Patients whose accounts are collectable. Patients whose accounts are not Collectable by law but good through the honesty of the person. Charity patients who are accepted and fully understood as

mien. • Patients whose accounts are not Collectable and who are perfectly willing to beat a medical bill. This last class is the one that has always required considerable attention because they wifi call one of the newer physicians and get a credit established paying promptly for a while; then they begin to pay only a part and finally when the main bill gets large they hunt up a nerw physician again and iso on. It is this class of accounts that the medical society is no wattempting to regulate. Therefore, the Society issues this notice through the press that on and after March Ist, 1915, a list will be kept by the society Of such clients who in the judgment of the physician handing such names to the Society, can but will not pay. Such list will be corrected, at each monthly meeting and only the physicians will have access to the list. This action will operate on the medical profession In this way, that no physician can respond to a call from any one on the list. It Will operate on this class of patients in that they will either ap peal to the township trustee for a physician ; or settle their medical bill. This measure will in no way affect true charity patients, for each member of the Society has a certain number of worthy patients •who cannot pay and he; knowing them to. be such, will gladly con tinue to care for them. All physicians of ‘Renaselawr have signed such an agreement.