Dan was in for bloodwork last week. He admitted he’d eaten poorly and had 4 alcoholic beverages the previous night. I hesitated – did he want to postpone the bloodwork? It might not give an accurate picture of his cholesterol readings or his sugar, even though he was fasting.
“Go ahead and draw it,” he said. “And I’ll come back next week to have labs drawn again and we’ll see if they’re better.“ He promised to eat better and not drink before the repeat labs.
In the traditional medicine world, insurance would have had a fit. No way would they pay for bloodwork that soon, without a good reason. He would have to pay for those labs himself.
Through my office, we draw self-pay labs at great prices. Dan’s cost for Lipids ($2.54), Liver ($1.26) and Kidney ($1.43) plus $10 drawing fee was a grand total of $15.23. At a local lab, with a self-pay discount, it would have been $51.50.