Private consultation fee-medical

Grumpy_chap

I know this does not help with the current charge to be met, but, going forwards, can the OP (or her daughter) get referred to the same Consultant via NHS?

sheramber

Grumpy_chap said:

I know this does not help with the current charge to be met, but, going forwards, can the OP (or her daughter) get referred to the same Consultant via NHS?

That would depend if  the consultant does NHS work and probably will still be  waiting your turn on the NHS waiting list as normal.

TELLIT01

Easy to be wise after the event but if I had twice asked the cost, and twice received no answer, I wouldn't have carried on with the consultation.

Tucosalamanca

Private online GP appointments start from around £50.

A professor is the highest academic level that a medical professional can achieve at University.
They are at least the equivalent of a hospital consultant.

Circle Health Group suggest that consultations start at around £200

Consultant's fees and diagnostics
Our fixed-price packages do not include consultant fees for the initial consultation. These vary quite a lot, but on average they tend to start from around £200.

Given a professor's skill level, what were you expecting to pay?

rach_k

While they should have told you the price before the appointment, you shouldn't have proceeded until you knew you were happy with the price, but I think you already know that.

If they'd charged you a ridiculous amount, I think it would be more reasonable to dispute it based on them not telling you beforehand, but I would agree with other posters that it's a fairly standard rate.  I've paid £295 for an initial appointment with a consultant (follow-ups are around £175, I think) within a large private healthcare company - I think that is just the going rate.  

If this was a medical appointment, I think you would probably have found that further testing would be more than that. We've always found scans and tests to be more expensive than  consultations, so while it's probably not much consolation when handing over £290 for what feels like not much, you might not have opted for private testing or treatment anyway.  

born_again

mummygray said:

eskbanker said:

mummygray said:
I completed a new patient form (for my daughter) and there is a line that says about being liable for any charges (I don’t have insurance). But still there is no mention of a fee, at any point in the correspondence. In hindsight, yes I should have made absolutely sure before going ahead, but the issue with my daughter is time sensitive, and as there was no reference to charges I didn’t think much else of it.

Does the new patient form relate to the no longer existent clinic or was this essentially an entirely private arrangement with an individual?

I believe it was with an individual, but she is a Professor at UCL. It wasn’t arranged via a clinic

UCL?

Also do they practise there?

eskbanker

born_again said:

mummygray said:

eskbanker said:

mummygray said:
I completed a new patient form (for my daughter) and there is a line that says about being liable for any charges (I don’t have insurance). But still there is no mention of a fee, at any point in the correspondence. In hindsight, yes I should have made absolutely sure before going ahead, but the issue with my daughter is time sensitive, and as there was no reference to charges I didn’t think much else of it.

Does the new patient form relate to the no longer existent clinic or was this essentially an entirely private arrangement with an individual?

I believe it was with an individual, but she is a Professor at UCL. It wasn’t arranged via a clinic

UCL?

Also do they practise there?

Home : University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust presumably?  However, if the professor was contacted directly via an old email address and the arrangements made as an individual, then their 'day job' isn't likely to be relevant and there won't be any prospect of pinning anything on UCL.

born_again

eskbanker said:

born_again said:

mummygray said:

eskbanker said:

mummygray said:
I completed a new patient form (for my daughter) and there is a line that says about being liable for any charges (I don’t have insurance). But still there is no mention of a fee, at any point in the correspondence. In hindsight, yes I should have made absolutely sure before going ahead, but the issue with my daughter is time sensitive, and as there was no reference to charges I didn’t think much else of it.

Does the new patient form relate to the no longer existent clinic or was this essentially an entirely private arrangement with an individual?

I believe it was with an individual, but she is a Professor at UCL. It wasn’t arranged via a clinic

UCL?

Also do they practise there?

Home : University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust presumably?  However, if the professor was contacted directly via an old email address and the arrangements made as an individual, then their 'day job' isn't likely to be relevant and there won't be any prospect of pinning anything on UCL.

I did wonder that. But was not going to assume..

Grumpy_chap

born_again said:

mummygray said:

eskbanker said:

mummygray said:
I completed a new patient form (for my daughter) and there is a line that says about being liable for any charges (I don’t have insurance). But still there is no mention of a fee, at any point in the correspondence. In hindsight, yes I should have made absolutely sure before going ahead, but the issue with my daughter is time sensitive, and as there was no reference to charges I didn’t think much else of it.

Does the new patient form relate to the no longer existent clinic or was this essentially an entirely private arrangement with an individual?

I believe it was with an individual, but she is a Professor at UCL. It wasn’t arranged via a clinic

UCL?

Also do they practise there?

UCL-H which includes several of the central London "flagship" hospitals and also some national / regional centres of excellence.  I only know because my Wife is under a Consultant (Professor) at UCL-H and the treatment is of the utmost excellence in standard, never any significant waiting times and all under NHS.  Being a leading name, any tests or such like are always arranged very quickly also - I think the system must see that the individual making the request knows the test is required so it gains some priority perhaps.
It is why I suggested upthread that the OP may be able to secure a referral to the same team via the NHS.  I am not sure whether Consultants that have seen a patient privately will be keen to then transfer that patient to their NHS clinic.

Ectophile

The obvious defence for the OP is that there is no contract.  The professor never said that there would be any fee.  The OP never agreed to pay any fee.  So the only reasonable conclusion was that it was a free initial consultation to see if the OP is a suitable patient for the professor.

Lots of professions regularly give free initial consultations - lawyers, financial advisers and so on.