I get skin cancer screenings every year or two, due to having skin cancer in my late 20’s. You would “think” this would be preventative care, however I still ended up needing to pay out of pocket. It was around $100 or so.
I believe that annual physicals should be covered, but at what point do you draw the line of what is included in an annual physical? To me, I just think of “routine” as being a short physical exam with a physician. Does that include blood work, what’s next? Annual MRI’s/Cat scans for cancer screenings? Etc? The line has to be drawn somewhere.
FYI - for bloodwork, you can save a LOT of time and money (if you’re paying out of pocket) by going to
www.privatemdlabs.com and ordering the bloodwork package you want. You simply pay online, print out your requisition, take it to a local lab, they take blood, and email you the results. In this day and age, unless you have health issues, a normal person can interpret the results easily (it tells you whatever is out of range) and google can do quite a bit of the rest.
That saves you from having to meet with the doctor (time, cost of visit) have them set up the bloodwork (separate appt (time) cost of bloodwork) then another appt back with your doctor (time, cost of visit) for him to tell you you’re fine, or tell you things you could have googled with even more information online.
I get bloodwork from there around twice a year just depending on a few things. It usually costs around $120-$180 depending what all tests I want done. I’ve probably had bloodwork from Privatemdlabs done 15-20 times over the last 6-7 years.
Unfortunately, this is par for the course, and a good example of why HDHPs are frustrating (even if you end up saving money).
I think the key is physical vs. office visit. I went in for what I thought was a physical and because I asked the doctor a question, that allegedly changed the nature of the appointment to an office visit (which is not free).
I paid the bill and promptly found a new doctor.
I don’t think this is necessarily the doctors fault to be honest. I think it’s insurance and the ways they are required to bill. They are not able to write a prescription for what would be an office visit, during a routine physical.
Now that you bring this up, I went though the exactly same thing last year. I had to get an annual physical and they made me set up a separate appointment to get my prescription refill. It was a huge pain in the ass, but I don’t blame the doctor. The physical was free.