IsabellaLinton wrote:
Hey rse - I have a question for you on another matter.
Do you know how sliding scale pricing works for professionals?
If you give someone a big discount on a sliding scale, do you as the service provider lose money out of pocket or is it reimbursed to you somehow through the government or some other kind of thing?
With most professions (legal, accounting, consulting) that bill hourly, offering discounts means you will make less profit than you will at regular rates, not lose money.
There are rare occasions where we do loss leader work for very good clients, and we also require at least 50 hours of pro bono work each year per lawyer.
I could but won't go on a rant about the trying to get paid for legal work by a state or federal government entity. Root canal is more pleasant.
In the medical arts world, I think it works like this: your provider bills $225 for a procedure. He or she collects from you the insurance company copay of $25. The provider submits the remaining $200 invoice to the insurer. The insurer says you'll get $100 and you'll like it. Your provider's real number is $125, and the provider knows that going in.
Having to pay $X and then submitting it to your insurance company is a big suck.