Doctors respond to Mitch Albom’s long wait for a lab test:

Forty-five minutes for a blood test! Outrageous, disrespectful, unfair and a waste of time. Mitch Albom should shift his medical care elsewhere — unless, of course, he has no choice, like the 1.5 million Michiganders who are either underinsured or uninsured. Or maybe he has Medicaid, which reimburses only 39 cents on the dollar charged, or Medicare, which pays less than 59 cents on the dollar charged.

As unfortunate as his experience was, most physicians are actually employees of a marginal, underfunded business operation — their own offices. If a business cannot increase reimbursement, then reducing costs through cutting personnel overloads schedules and employees.