Chapter X

GETTING FEES IN ADVANCE. How the Money May Be 141
Secured Before Treatment Is Started—Undue
Haste, or Evident Desire to Get the Cash,
Bad Policy—Putting the Patient’s Mind in
Condition to Make Advance Payment—A
Successful Fee Getter’s Line of
Talk—Creation of Confidence in the
Physician’s Ability and Honesty the Main
Factor—Making Sure of Payment When Partial
Credit Is Extended—Method of Drawing Notes
That Are Readily Negotiable and
Non-Contestable—Inducing Patients to Sign
Iron-Clad Notes—When and How to Act—Turning
Checks and Notes Into Cash—Weeding Out the
Payers and Non-Payers—What to Say When a
Patient Objects to Signing a Note—Smart Man
Easiest to Deal With—Instance in Which a
Banker Paid a $2,500 Fee Twice—How a
$10,000 Fee, Definitely Settled Upon, Was
Lost

CHAPTER XI.

GETTING ADDITIONAL FEES. Patients Who Have 153
Paid Big Fees for Treatment Almost
Invariably Good for a Second Payment—Lines
Upon Which More Money May Be Had—Men of 50
Years and Over Gold Mines When They Have
the Means—How to Handle Them—Dangling the
“Sexual Vigor” Bait in a Delicate and
Effective Manner—Suggestions of
Supplementary Treatments That Bring
Additional Fees—Arrangements With
Occulists, Pharmacists, Surgeons and
Instrument Dealers That Add Materially to
the Physician’s Income—How Patients Are
Induced to Patronize the Specialist’s
Allies—Secret Ciphers That Result in
Extravagant Charges—Division of the
Proceeds—Adventure With an
Undertaker—Doctors Who “Sponge” Upon Their
Professional Brethren

CHAPTER XII.

PROPER HANDLING OF NOTES. Kind of Note That 171
is Negotiable and Easily Discounted—Manner
in Which Such a Note Should be
Drawn—Defects in Ordinary Form of
Promissory Note—Ease With Which Payment May
Be Evaded or Delayed—Difficulties in the
Way of Enforcing Collection—An Iron-clad
Promise to Pay That Binds the
Maker—Avoidance of Litigation and Attendant
Expense—What to Do With Notes When Taken
for Medical Services—How to Dispose of
“Paper” to Bankers Who Know the Financial
Responsibility of the Signers—Successful
Method of a Chicago Physician Who Handles
Considerable “Paper”—The Collection Agent
Evil

CHAPTER XIII.

PRESCRIBING OF REMEDIES. Why Physicians 179
Should Dispense Their Own
Prescriptions—Trouble With Present System
of Drug-store Dispensing—Number of Drugs
Actually Required in Practice
Limited—Duplication of Prescriptions by
Pharmacists an Injustice to
Doctors—Proprietary Medicine
Fakirs—Prescribing Secret Formula
Preparations—How Many Practitioners Are
Hoodwinked—Positive Injury in Prescribing
Remedies by Trade Names—Violation of Code
in Using Preparations With Unknown
Ingredients—Value of Mystery in the
Administration of Drugs—Unwise to Let
Patients Know Too Much About Their
Prescriptions—Why All Remedies Should Be
Designated in Latin—Views of Dr. Osler on
Drug Prescribing

CHAPTER XIV.

MEDICAL “STEERERS” AND THEIR WORK. Method by 187
Which Many Physicians Obtain Patients—Men
Who Make a Business of Directing Invalids
Where to Go for Treatment—Commercial
Diplomats—Their Style of Work—Large
Incomes—How Sufferers Are Approached—The
Kind of Talk That Wins the Confidence of
the Sufferer—Directing the Victim to a
Physician—Landing the Patient in the
Doctor’s Office—The Steerer’s
Commission—How He Protects Himself and
Insures Square Treatment by the
Doctor—Opportunities for Obtaining
Patients—Leading Hotels Favorite Places of
Operation—Old Brace Faro Game Worked in New
Form—Women Steerers and Their Methods

CHAPTER XV.

WHAT SHOULD THE PHYSICIAN DO? Various 195
Remedies Proposed for Existing
Conditions—Too Many Doctors in the Land—Not
Enough Patients to Go Around—What the
Medical Colleges Are Doing—Over 5,000
Doctors Made Every Year in the Strictly
Ethical Schools Alone—Temptations of Young
Physicians—What Men Like Dr. Evans and Dr.
King Have to Say—Prominent Practitioners
Endorse Division of Fees as an Act of
Justice—Prof. George Burman Foster on the
Profession as Allied to Business—No Reason
Why There Should Be Any Distinction Between
the Two

CHAPTER XVI.

CORPORATION DOCTORS. Evils of the Contract 207
Plan—How It Injures the Regular
Practitioner and the Contract Doctor
Himself—Miserly Economy by
Corporations—Disastrous Competition Among
Physicians—Life Insurance Examiners and
Their Lack of Business Sense—Moral as Well
as Medical Honesty Dwarfed by the
Corporation System—Contract Doctors
Expected to Hide the Truth to Retain Their
Jobs—Beggarly Salaries Paid by
Corporations—Practice Wrongfully Diverted
from Doctors Entitled to It—Collusion
Between Corporation Doctors and Claim
Agents—Sick and Injured Employees Often
Induced to Sign Away Their Rights by
Misrepresentation or Intimidation—The
Drawbacks of Promiscuous Fraternizing

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