Costs

Patient contact as well as chart review and letter writing or filling out forms are charged by the minute of Dr. Cheney’s time. The exact charge per minute is subject to change and is currently set at $11 USD per minute or $660 USD per hour. A typical initial two day visit will cost between $8,000 USD and $9,000 USD plus or minus $1,000 USD. Follow-up visits are for one day, usually starting at noon and lasting until 7 or 8 PM with a break and cost typically between $4,000 USD and $6,000 USD with either one visit or two visits per year.

Care is taken to not charge for patient liaison minutes, if possible, when minor problems are discussed or clarifications are requested. Each charge, if any, is subject to the test of reasonableness for the professional effort required of Dr. Cheney directly or through his designated patient liaison.

Typical daily patient charges of 6 hours for physician time in this clinic would yield a daily clinic income that is not significantly different from ordinary practices of medicine and often less. The difference is that a single patient may pay the entire 6 hours of physician charges as opposed to between 15 and 20 patients in an ordinary internal medicine practice which might easily be $300 USD per patient visit of 30 minutes duration or less.

Our costs cover the complexity and time involved, unique technologies applied and the years of unparalleled experience that Dr. Cheney brings to this encounter. For over twenty years, most patients have felt the price was worth the effort expended though not all patients can afford these charges.

In many instances, we try to keep the time with Dr. Cheney at a minimum on request and this often works out well though less than 3 hours is impractical for most follow-up patients. In addition to Dr. Cheney’s time, there are other charges for the echocardiograph machine time and the sonographer’s time.