Minutus

Hi Celia,

This overlooks the fact that there are two things at work during a consult and subsequent prescription. First, the skill and the knowledge of the practitioner and second, the quality and completeness of the information that patient gives to the practitioner. A poor prescription can result from problems from either of these two areas - it is not always the practitioners fault.

The other thing to consider is that the first prescription is just the beginning for many people. A return to good and complete health, especially with a chronic problem, can be a process that involves changes of potencies and changes of remedies. Homeopathy is pretty good but it cannot always be a magic bullet.
Kind regards,

Fran Sheffield
Homeopathy Plus! (Information - Remedies - Treatment)
http://www.homeopathyplus.com.au
Homeopathy for Autism (Guidelines for Treatment)
http://www.homeopathy4autism.com
Do No Harm Initiative (Homeopathic Immunisation)
http://www.d-n-h.org
Celia M. Malm wrote:

This overlooks the fact that there are two things at work during a consult and subsequent prescription. First, the skill and the knowledge of the practitioner and second, the quality and completeness of the information that patient gives to the practitioner. A poor prescription can result from problems from either of these two areas - it is not always the practitioners fault.

I'm not suggesting that all further consultations should be free. If there is improvement, it would be logical to expect the patient to pay for further consultations. But if the prescription did nothing or even made the patient worse, it hardly seems fair to ask the patient to pay more in order to get another prescription. For one thing, having to shell out more and more for no result doesn't do much for the patient's confidence in homeopathy! That's the sort of thing that adds to the reputation of homeopathy as quackery. We rely so much on anecdotal evidence; it doesn't help to have anecdotal evidence like "I paid $2000 to a homeopath, and it didn't help at all."
Coaxing good information out of the patient is part of the homeopath's responsibility. If a homeopath isn't willing to stand behind his or her skill, that says a lot. People typically expect to get what they pay for from a person whose expertise they hire. In most professions, if the worker does a bad job, they are expected to make it right. People respect workers who do so. People resent workers who do not. Admittedly, the field of medicine has gotten more of a pass in this regard than some other professions. But aren't homeopaths supposed to be *better* than allopaths?
Cee

Celia M. Malm wrote:
Your expectations and demands sound unrealistic and do not take into account the variables that come into play during homeopathic treatment.

When you are paying to see a practitioner, you are basically paying for the time they will spend in trying to help with your health problem. It is important to realise you are not paying for preset outcome - nobody guarantees one - there are just too many variables beyond the practitioner's control to do this. You do have the right to expect that they will do their very best in making an accurate prescription for your health problem but you cannot expect more than that. If you are seeing a high demand practitioner, it is likely you will be pay more for their time and expertise than you would for someone who is not in such demand - these are just market forces at work.

The choice of whose time you purchase still rests with the you - it is not forced upon you. Just as there are good mechanics and poor mechanics, so there are good and poor homeopaths. It is in your best interests to understand when you are receiving good or poor treatment. If you are unsure how to tell this, I have written a tutorial (13) that can be found at the Homeopathy Plus website in my signature line. This at least gives you guidelines on what to look for.
If you have done your homework, you may decide to choose a practitioner who is a member of a registering body that has a mechanism in place for assessing public complaints. If you believe you have received poor treatment, you can complain and have your complaint investigated by them. This is your best protection until governements protect the title of homeopath to weed out poorly trained or incompetent practitioners - but by and large, governments are not interested in giving homeopathy this legitimacy. Currently the onus is on you to do some homework about who you consult with - the choice is still yours. Knowing this, you cannot expect at a later date to complain about your poor choices. Nor can you expect your practitioner to guarantee the outcome of every prescription - healthcare does not work like that, in any modality.

Kind regards,

Fran Sheffield
Homeopathy Plus! (Information - Remedies - Treatment)
http://www.homeopathyplus.com.au
Homeopathy for Autism (Guidelines for Treatment)
http://www.homeopathy4autism.com
Do No Harm Initiative (Homeopathic Immunisation)
http://www.d-n-h.org

I rechecked my original emails... You're expected to follow up with
Dr. Rama every 2 months. In person $350, phone $250. It seems if
you have a problem during interval, you're on your own, unless you
want to pay another $250. So, we're talking $1500-$2100 or more a
year to be properly treated. His office is a hotel room in
Manhattan, say $300/night for 3 nights, $900. If he sees 10 patients
a day for 3 days, that's $10,500 made. He's certainly not losing $
on his trip!

Luc De Schepper also charges $750 but that includes an immediate
followup when you initially take the remedy. Dr. Rama doesn't want to
hear from you, he seems annoyed if you contact him with a question.
How much does Luc charge for followups? Plus, he does not follow a
set protocol of remedies and rigid time frame for followup.

I don't get the impression either spend hours figuring out the
simillimum.
--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, Sheri Nakken
wrote:
went on.
account.
Americans.
repetition.
http://www.wellwihtin1.com/vaccine.htm

Oh please - that had to be a joke.
Anyone who gives a guarantee has lost ALL their marbles, and someone
suggesting it has had their marbles at least step aside!

The fee is for the time and expertise used, not for the results that
may or may not occur.

It pays the overheads of the practitioner, their student loan
costs during the time they worked to become a professional, the
software costs, continuing study costs, cost of reference books,
research time on your case, etc etc etc. I(t'[s like any other
profession - the time of the expert and the cost that got them to
become expert, are what the fee is for. It is a "consulting" fee, not
a "results" fee.

They do their best, and it has nothing to do with guarantees.
(It's not like chemo and radiation costs guarantee cancer cure either.)

If you do not like the value for your money, then you go elsewhere.
If you feel there was illegal activity then you sue.
If you like what you got for your money then you get happy and maybe
recommend to others.
It is always important to consider what value you got for the money -
so someone who charges a high fee, may be giving a LOT of value for
it. Someone with a low fee may be giving low value. You need to
compare apples and oranges.
I would run a mile from anyone who said they would do that; I prefer
to see a professional who's not a sandwich short of a picnic.
A trained professional will do what's best for the client AT THE TIME
and will still need to re-analyse some cases again - or even multiple
times.
If aspects of the initial intake are not repeated - costs of setting
up a file, recording past history - then perhaps the fees for
additional case analysis might be less than the initial ones. It's up
to the practitioner how they cost out their work - some average it
out and have a fee per case - other a fee per analysis - others
charge by time - others have a scale etc. It is a business decision
how to do it. But the bottom like is whether the client feels they
had value for money. And the professional needs to be sure to cover
their cost of living (whether it is modest or otherwise) or they will
go out of business for bad management - quite apart from the homeopathy.

It is not reasonable to repertorize from scratch for free as a matter
of policy, much less twice more. You'd have to amortize the costs
over those of other clients, skewing the fees very badly agaionst
those with no more than a scratch to handle. THAT would be unethical.
Why would you expect the triple work for free?
I can understand allowing for some pro bono cases and setting fees to
all others be able to afford the pro bono ones without going out of
business - but that's not the same as your sugestion of free case
work for paying clients on a regular basis.

Namaste,
Irene
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

....then it is the patient's prerogative to find another homeopath.
However the best information does not automatically lead to an
effective remedy in a complex case. And that is NOT the homeopath's
fault, much less something they need to be punished for financially
or any other way.
It's not in the patient's area of expertise to judge the quality of
the homeopathy used for them.

They can judge the results and either go back or find someone else.
(A homeopath who consistently gets nowhere with clients will soon
have none. )

In the legal sense too - once you agree to a consult, you are obliged
to pay for it whether you like the results or not. So the time to
decide if you like the homeopath is BEFORE you go to them - not
after. Do your homework - get references - or YOU pay the
consequences:-)

Namaste,
Irene
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

took the words out of my mouth.

thanks Fran
Sheri

At 05:18 AM 8/31/2008, you wrote:

well, we all have living expenses and we all have the computer and
book costs and training costs, etc. then why shouldn't we all be
charging that same fee. in terms of time spent, these high price
people usually spend far less time on cases (as has been noted).
so they are making a far higher percentage of O&P.
so you can look at it as paying more for a bigger brand name or
you can raise questions about how health care is paid for and how it
fits into a culture as an entitlement vs a privilege. i do think there are
some meaningful questions here. as some people note, they do
most of their practice pro bono which puts them, in a sense, in the
ministry category and requires they get their income from other sources.
in england, while under the NIH, how were fees structured? did the state
create a fee scale, or did the practitioner? as i recall from previous
discussion a while back, fees were much less there than in the USA.
my understanding is these brand name practitioners come here because
they know they can charge extraordinarily high fees which they could
not in their own countries. am i wrong?
tanya

Hi,
Personally, I think that learning on yourself is the best. You get an inside view of the remedy. If it were me, even if the homeopath were so famous, I would be trying to figure out what he is thinking. So by all means buy the CD. Is he going to mind if you did a little self management? Having said such easy going words:

I asked a not famous person to do my case. She gave me a great remedy then refused to manage the case. I thought I was hiring her to manage the case. That's what I do for my patients. How could I learn anything if I didn't do the management?? I was all ready to quite trying to outsmart the doctor. Then I found out the doctor was not thinking past the first prescription. What a downer. So I took over. And now I feel find about it. But I am super conservative. I think if I had inherited diabetes, I would at least want to be talking with his students and keeping a written record of my case. I really would not want to be managing my own case. One good student would really help you to stay objective. Even hire an advanced student to manage the case. That's what I would do.

The two of you can go back to the famous doctor when you get stuck. He probably has you on a standard protocal and is not even watching the case the way Hahnemann would have him do. O course it would be much better to be really watching your case carefully the way any decent and serious student would.

Best,
Ellen

[ ... .... ... Pandora ... ]
I've been watching the responses and since no one else is going to say it, I will. You asked for feedback on his methods.... let's break it down -
First, he prescribed not one constitutional remedy, but two different remedies.
Second, one remedy prescribed was based on your diagnosis, not you, the patient with such diagnosis.
Third, he prescribed a set schedule of remedies to be taken for a set time. Where's the personalization? And how will you know which remedy is doing what?
Fourth, and you've said it yourself, you have had to suffer through the expected aggravations (but thankfully know how to adjust with 5th water dosing).
Fifth, when new remedy instructions made you feel worse and your case regressed, you contacted him and his response was - "keep taking it and pay me more money again so I can tell you what to do when I come to the states." So what kind of pathology do you think that could create by the time he gets here?
Sixth, certainly something in the 49 remedies of his "Diabetes Treat Yourself CD" would do something wouldn't it? Just what will that be? Cure your diabetes? Maybe. Stir up latent miasms, aggravate the you-know-what out of you? Possibly. Who really knows? Sure, his protocols may work in some cases. And yes, I know he's allegedly curing cancer with his unique methods. If you want to spend lots of money on this chance protocol working, that is definitely your prerogative.
Seventh, don't forget the sloppy case management with the lost case records and your need to resend all of your case. I hope every practitioner uses some sort of back up for their system - especially ones charging those kinds of fees.
YES - this *is* quasi-allopathic-classical prescribing as you term it! Do yourself and your health a favor and find a good quality homeopath who will give you the care and attention your case deserves! I don't care who it is - you are receiving HORRIBLE care and spending a LOT of money on it! I wouldn't waste another penny on it! If this person's name was Dr. So-and-So Knowbody Knows, I would think the response would be much different. You can call me stupid or naive or whatever you want but this is NOT good homeopathy.
There are families of children with ASD who have seen famous homeopaths and paid *thousands* of dollars for it and have received nothing but heartache, wasted time, and aggravation in return. Clearly writing books or being famous in the homeopathic community does not necessarily equate to good practice. If a practitioner has proven, consistent, successful cases and gives every case the attention it deserves, and works in earnest for a cure, and makes themselves available when the patient needs them, then yes, they deserve every penny of every hundred or thousand they charge - even if they don't find the simillimum. Otherwise, you are paying simply to perpetuate their fame with the pure luck chance of cure.
Obviously, in choosing this doctor, you knew his style of prescribing so that may not be an issue for you. But since you asked about it, it appears you're unsure. If your goal was to receive experimental, protocol, quasi-homeopathy, then I suppose you are getting what you paid for. If you want good, classical homeopathy, then I suggest you need a different homeopath. Do yourself a favor, read Fran's article and then interview a few homeopaths. Find someone you click with and someone who will treat with honesty, integrity, and good method. As others have said, the case management is integral.
I'm not famous, I'm a sophomore homeopath, but I certainly know bad homeopathy when I see it. For what my opinion is worth, you decide.
I apologize for my forthright response but someone had to say it. You deserve better! I wish you all the best on your journey to wellness.
Truly,
Erica
OP healthinfo6 asked:
Have you or anyone you know been treated by Dr. Ramakrishnan? I'd like to hear feedback on his methods, successes and failures. ... Am I just overpaying for what may turn out to be his already established
diabetes protocol where I'll be cycled through these remedies? I can already strike three remedies off this list.