Healthcare is one of those fields where the power imbalance between provider and patient is so significant that most people simply nod along and trust the clipboard. Questioning a doctor’s medical recommendation feels uncomfortable at best and presumptuous at worst. Which is exactly why some providers have gotten very comfortable recommending treatments that have more to do with their next holiday than your actual health.
When this patient was sitting in a periodontist’s chair, she listened to an $11,500 treatment plan and noticed his assistant’s face doing something very different from her job description. She asked the right question at the right moment, and the review request that arrived on the drive home was, in hindsight, a spectacular miscalculation on the doctor’s part.
