Loved your responses to Tip 589 last week. (“Should I Have Gone to the ER?”) Thank you.

Thought I’d address one theme of those responses; i.e., spending extra on a concierge doc is a waste of money.

To paraphrase: “I would have gone to the ER, Jon. They’d have run multiple tests for sure; maybe one in ten would have been useful, but that’s worth it to me. I pay about three grand for (Medicare) supplement insurance that covers everything, so how do you figure you’d ‘spend’ $100K?”

I’m aware that in avoiding the ER, I risked spending way more than $100K by delaying a diagnosis of something far worse than ‘just’ an acute GI infection.

So understand, I asked the original question because of doubts about how I handled that episode.

What’s not in doubt is that claims paid by insurance companies are funded with my/our premiums.

The episode of care described last week was essentially a crap-shoot. I spent < $100 (Imodium, Gatorade & bananas. Yuk!), instead of $100K, or more.

But in any event, it was with my dollars!

And no, they won’t be lowering my premiums because this time, I won that bet!