Because of the difficulties dermatologists face with insurance companies, they often have to find other means to make sure the bills get paid. Many have found themselves providing cosmetic treatments and surgery as the way to get it done. Cosmetic treatment demand has skyrocketed in the past few decades. And these treatments mean more money for the practice. Cosmetic patients pay upfront for their procedures whereas the medical patients are often going through their good old friends, the insurance companies.
So guess who gets the priority appointments. According to a 2007 study by UCSF the wait time for a changing mole was more than three times longer than for a wrinkle injection. Some of the dermatologists WH interviewed don’t believe that cosmetic appointments cause delays for medical patients, but of course every dermatologist handles their patients differently. Whether they are correct or not, insurance companies have made dermatologist practices increasingly difficult to maintain.
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