For example, I had my first dental appointment here this week. The dentist's office is in our building so all I had to do was take the elevator down to the lobby and hang a left.
After filling out a very short form the receptionist asked for my national health insurance card. She entered its information in her computer and within five minutes I'm in for my exam and cleaning. Naturally, in this high-tech country there was a flat-screen monitor in front of me as I sat in the chair. My dentist, who spoke excellent English, then used this small hand-held wand with a TV camera on the end of it to show me on the monitor, in vivid color detail, what was going on in my mouth. Then the hygienist did her thing, and I was on my way out and ready to pay my bill. My charge: $60. No billing, no calling to verify insurance, no hassle. So simple.
The dentist reports her cases daily to the national health insurance system, who then transfers money directly into her account. By the way, we don't use checks in Korea. Everything is by electronic transfer. Oh, and for my next cleaning appointment, the dentist will send me an automatic text message on my cell phone.
Think about how much more efficient our own system would be with this kind of set-up. Dentists could eliminate at least one or possibly two front office people. There's no billing since you either pay in cash or with your credit card. There's no mailing cost, no calls back and forth to insurance companies and dentists are paid practically immediately for services. Makes sense to me.
I could tell she was still having mixed feelings of shock, surprise and possible misgivings until she overheard my conversation with the agent, who said, "You're going to Moscow and then...continuing on to Paris, I see." Tanya: "PARIS??" "We're going to PARIS??"