We have had another first at our facility. A patient that found us through our website and had shoulder surgery about a year ago returned to have his other shoulder operated on. He was one of the most appreciative patients I have ever met. The closest bid he could find to our price….well, let’s just say it wasn’t even close. An internet patient return customer. Maybe I shouldn’t get so excited about each of the breakthroughs like this but I just can’t help myself.
Patients paying for their surgery directly and finding our facility through our website has picked up significantly in the last month. Someone told me in D.C. today that our prices were so low that people would be inclined to drop their health insurance altogether, a month or two of premiums being all it would take to pay for many of the procedures on our list!
Hat’s off to the surgeons and staff at The Surgery Center of Oklahoma. Together we may have ushered in a whole new level of competition in the medical marketplace with implications at the local and national level.
G. Keith Smith, M.D.
Good Lord, when I read this piece and visited your site, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!
A doctor who’s read Von Mises…amazing! It’s really true…government/third party intervention has removed the price feedback, and the supply/demand relationship is distorted.
I’m a second generation free-market physician (learned from Dad, who always said “Medicare is socialized medicine) who is pretty demoralized and not practicing at present, though keeping busy with other worthwhile activities. I live in central Missouri. My loved ones or I, myself, might have to visit you soon!
God Bless You for what you are doing.
Comment by Pamela K. Grow, M.D. — October 17, 2011 @ 8:28 am
Thanks for your reply…great on this end to know that other physicians are out there reading Mises and crew. The facility that I co-founded is based on those free market principles that allow for ups and downs in the cycles but are more stable long term. Very little notice would be needed if you would like to visit and you are welcome anytime.
Cordially,
G. Keith Smith, M.D.
Comment by surgerycenterok — October 17, 2011 @ 10:23 am