“Time is not money. Time is medicine.”

“In our economy, productivity is often measured in units of time. Time is then converted to money. We hire architects, lawyers, plumbers and piano teachers, and we pay them by the hour.

The current medical reimbursement system pays by the job performed, not by the time spent.

Your appendectomy is charged on a flat rate, like a brake job. The surgeon who performs your appendectomy gets paid the same if he takes one hour or two, as long as he takes out only one appendix.

Your family doctor receives the same reimbursement for diagnosing a sinus infection in 6 minutes as he does if he takes 30 minutes.

In our current system, there is no way to buy an hour of your doctor’s time just to talk.

The doctor can give you that time free, but under most health plans he cannot bill you for it.

With the current rate of exchange, as dictated by the health insurance companies, an hour spent talking with your physician has no value.”