Sometime nice guys finish first

Welcome to you stray readers from the Fat Cyclist's blog.

If you've read a few posts from this site, you may have come across a story in which I deal with a patient dying from a bleeding ulcer. Things go well, I'm able to stop the bleeding, and the patient survives, only to die of something else ten or twenty years from now. And I swear it won't be my fault.

In retrospect it would have been a better post had I not whined about not getting paid for my services; after all, the poor man was uninsured and had had tough financial circumstances. I really did not expect any reimbursement.

My patient accounts coordinator, AKA billings and insurance lady, was surprised to receive a call from said patient. "You know," he said, "I've gotten a bill from everyone involved in my care but good old kindly Dr. Juspasenthru. I'm going to get mad if he doesn't tell me how much I owe him."

My insurance lady told me this and, after she had revived me with smelling salts, submitted my bill which the patient has paid. In full.

To be honest, after that phone call I would have been perfectly content if he had sent me some chickens and some homemade marmalade, like they used to do in the old days.

Cash works well, too.