Anyone ever get scammed by a doctor?

and just what she's telling the doctor too!

Someone really needs to be with mom to listen to whs t the doctor is telling her.

Could mom have told the MD that she was having recurrent diarrhea as well as the UTI and perhaps went on & on about both? if so, I'd bet that she got one of the newer RX's for CDiff. They are beyond expensive:
Dificid runs about $ 3,500.00 for that prescription. yes 3 large! that would be $ 200 per pill. Another one - Vancocin runs about $ 500 - 800 for that RX.

If your folks aren't being seen by a gerontologist, really try to get them into a geriatric speciality practice.

Get a copy of her medical record from that doctor. The patient is entitled to a copy of the record. They CAN charge for the copying. Or she can go there, ask to see the record and then you can photograph the pages yourself for free. Something is fishy there. Also, check out any future docs on health grades.com to see if there are negative reviews.

UTI's can be chronic which means they may never "clear" up and are ever present though no symptoms are apparent. If the doctor is familiar with the patient he /she already recognizes the problem and prescibes a med before the tests are in.
If the UTI is recurrent or chronic a doc may put their patient on a daily low dose of antibiotic (expensive.
Doctors do not check the price of drugs.They prescribe what they feel will be most beneficial and appropriate for their patient.
The pharmacy will generally substitute a generic equivalent if available as it's a must under new insurance dictates unless the physician request specifies "no substitute".
Drugs are usually covered by your insurance.Places like walmart allow qualified individuals to obtain costly drugs for well under pharmaceutical recommendations of price though most will be generic.
Are doctors scammers? Some are and some are compensated for distributing certain brands.
However most physicians are no longer independant contractors but work the umbrella of large companies who dictate the time spent with a patient, the drugs their doctors should recommend etc. in return for malpractice coverage I suspect.
Large companies have calls farmed out to independant contractors.
Presciptions to one, appointments to another etc.They are not always in the same office, city or state.Often calls and call backs are automated, wait in a cue for an automated scripted response or "for the next operator" to return it.
They have little knowledge on their screen of the clients conditionmed history or diagnosis.
They read the script.
Talk with your druggist when in doubt over meds or cost. I find them to be more helpful and informative than the medical offices.

The whole point was getting that rx filled and the money made from that sale. There was no risk for the doctor, as he could justify it because an earlier exam must have confirmed there was UTI. It's really easy in that circumstance to call the patient the next day or even days later to say, oops, our mistake, you didn't need that. But you (or your insurance) has already enriched the manufacturer and everyone riding it's coattails, by then. And that's the point of writing rx's for drugs that are THAT expensive. It's not always because you need them and every patient should question their prescribers about the need for each and every prescription, and make them really justify it. Many of those drugs do absolutely nothing and as we all see, a lot of the new ones do a lot of damage. It's not the good old days, when you could believe a drug does what it's supposed to do.

If nothing else, it sounds like someone besides dad should be going to doctor's appointments with mom. Is it possible that the doctor said just that...don't fill this until we get the results, mom and dad didn't "hear" that? That certainly started to be the case with my mom a few years ago.

FF, often for these new expensive drugs no generic is available.

The most expensive meds I could find were Linezolid and Daptomycin, but neither one should be used without a positive culture showing MRSA or some other resistant bacteria. Shame on that MD, fire her and find another.

Usually the *brand* named prescription can be quite expensive, but the pharmacy would fill the prescription with a generic which would be more affordable.

Part of the problem when the less expensive treatments aren't enough is drug resistance and finding something that will overcome the disease organisms. The new drugs developed for this purpose can be very expensive. For example, a recently approved drug to treat c-diff, Fidaxomicin "is proposed to be $2800 for a 10-day course" -- about double the next strongest drug.

When my mom was struggling with both c-diff and uti, I remember discussion that the next pill they would try, if they had to, was over $100 per day. Yikes! I honestly can't remember if they had to go to that drug or which infection it was for. But I remember how miserable Mom was, and how much we hoped there was SOMETHING that would cure her.

I wouldn't see this as a scam unless the doctor somehow profits from prescriptions. Usually those very expensive drugs are brought into play when more conventional treatments haven't worked -- which is the case for your mother. It might have been more appropriate to say "here is a prescription, but don't fill it until we get the lab results." Doctors aren't always as cost-conscious as they should be, but that isn't the same as scamming their patients.

All doctors have close business relationships with reps from pharmaceutical companies, and the doctors benefit from those relationships in many, many ways. Your doctor is making money for the manufacturer, as most do. Busted by your call, their reason for "canceling" the rx was a typical response. How do I know this? 35 years of medical practice management and a nephew that is a pharm rep for one of the biggest manufacturers in the country. A doctor will drop a patient's exam to run to meet with a pharm rep at the drop of a hat. Some even leave the surgical suite! It's an everyday dirty little secret of the health care industry, and your experience was just a quick glimpse of what goes on. There are very few really good, honest doctors out there, but not many, and most do what you described every single day -- even some of the good ones. And they don't get caught. Congratulations - you busted one! There's no one to report it to, nothing will be done. But a bad review on every website you can find about this doctor would at least warn others to watch for that predatory behaviour. Honestly, some of these doctors are like used care salesmen these days, always trying to squeeze a buck outta someone that might have money. I can't wait for Obamacare to morph into socialized medicine, so all these folks will be out of work.

But does mom still have a uti? Did they do a culture?

Even $600, for 30 pills would be $20 a pill. $200 each pill is crazy. Wish she had the name of that one. I would NOT go back to that MD, he's nuts.

Someone posted recently about a script for c -diff that was $600.00 AFTER insurance.

I don't even know of an antibiotic that is $200 a pill. Look up prices online. Just doesn't seem right.

Thanks. She wasn't listed.

Check out your mom's doc on here and see if he's being paid by the pharma company. http://www.cms.gov/openpayments/index.html