Large Fees and How to Get Them: A book for the private use of physicians

by Albert V. Harmon

“It would not look well for me to put myself on the same plane with merchants. Mine is a profession, not a trade. Besides, I’m in duty bound to do a certain amount of charity work.”

Now charity work is all right in its place. An honest, upright practitioner will never refuse to respond to a call for his services in deserving cases because the payment of his fee is uncertain, but this does not obtain to the extent of virtually making paupers of people who are actually able to pay. And yet this is really what happens when a physician conducts his business affairs in a slipshod manner, and this is what most of them do. There is no excuse or reason for it.

But we started in to tell of Nature’s part in the equipment of the successful physician. What is the equipment? The possession of a robust, healthy physique, a sunny, cheerful disposition, and a fair knowledge of medicine, and ordinary business ability. All are essential if real success is to be attained, either in a medical sense, or in the accumulation of a respectable income.

Let us take two instances for the purpose of comparison. In one case we have a practitioner with just a fair knowledge of medicine, but in the possession of all the characteristics mentioned. His very presence in the sick chamber acts as a tonic to the patient.

Then we have a thin, undersized, nervous, dyspeptic physician; dissatisfied with himself and the world generally. He is a thorough master in medicine, and his treatment is more scientific than that of his less learned brother. His presence in the sick chamber, however, has anything but a soothing effect on the patient. On the contrary it irritates him, and the effect of the scientific treatment is nullified. This is not an exaggerated case. There are thousands of just such men in practice.

Which practitioner is going to have the greatest meed of success? The answer is easy—the one who cheers and encourages his patient by the magnetism of his presence.

Talk as we may, suggestion is a powerful factor in the practice of medicine. I do not mean by this that suggestion alone will cure illness (this statement is made without intention of affronting those who believe in Christian Science). But there is ample evidence to the effect that suggestion goes a long ways in making medical treatment effective. It is only the physician whom Nature has equipped in the manner indicated who can offer the right kind of suggestion and he does it unconsciously.

A physician of this kind is bound to become popular, and popularity begets a large practice and commensurate fees, provided the practitioner is in the right location, and has the business acumen to place the proper value on his services.

From time immemorial physicians have been imbued with the idea that they must adhere to a set scale of fees. I am speaking now of the average doctor, the man with a general practice. All patients, the laborer and the banker, the wage earner and the millionaire, are charged the same. In the country districts, the small towns and cities, this charge is usually one dollar a visit. In the larger places it is generally two dollars.

Why should this be so? The architect, the attorney, the civil engineer are all professional men in the same way that the physician is. Whoever heard of any of them adhering to a set scale of fees in the same way that doctors do? Invariably they regulate the charge for their services according to the money value involved, and the nature of the services required. The man who employs an attorney in litigation where a large money value is at stake naturally expects to pay a much larger fee than the man who employs the same attorney in a minor case. The man who wants plans for a million dollar building pays the architect greatly in excess of the one who builds a one thousand dollar house. The principle is sound and all parties concerned are satisfied.