A lady just came into our clinic at 4:30 on Friday evening with her male partner and wanted us to perform a pregnancy test. Told that we had just closed for the weekend and that she can go to any pharmacy and buy a similar test, she replied that she "has NO money." Of course, when asked, she admitted to smoking intermittently, perhaps a pack a day.
Here are her potential costs:
- one pregnancy test = $7.99
- three packs of cigarettes = 8.39
(per Dr. AN, a frequent cigarette purchaser, cheap cigarettes cost $2.79 per pack, though here it's a bit more...)
Of courses, all services and tests in our clinic are free, which means we end up getting abused by a few patients (very few in reality). We've all thought of implementing a nominal charge per visit/test/etc - we just don't know what level to put it at and how to administer it. Any thoughts?
(As for the patient, unless she's having actual symptoms of abdominal pain or vaginal bleeding, there's no emergency to knowing she's pregnant. She should just start taking some pre-natal vitamins and iron pills and hold off on the alcohol/tobacco/drugs until she's sure. There's no harm in undertaking any of these measures, while there may be world of benefit for the potential fetus.)
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