workshops at conference/concessionary fees/endocrine discussion

March 3, 2002

1. Alison, have you approached Kerry Caldock?

2.re; concessionary fees.

As usual, I'm logging on for my weekly fix of herbal-list emails, so this debate

may be over by the time I reply, but here goes anyway!

I think I must charge less than most people, (£23 initial, £13 follow-ups, £4

per 100ml Mx) but here in the depths of NW Wales, if I charged any more, I'd

probably get no-one through the door. I do offer reduced rates, which I tend to

apply more or less flexibly, having assessed people's ability to pay, like

someone else mentioned, in the initial consultation. I've also been ripped off,

with people forgetting to pay, giving me rubber cheques etc, and as I send out

quite a few herbs in the post (for folk who've been stable for ages and see me

every few months; distances are often huge between me and my patients, and with

buses which run twice a day if we're lucky, this is a compromise) I tend to have

a constant back-log of money which is owed me, and trickles in a bit at a time.

I tend to feel, I suppose, that I don't want anyone to be unable to access

herbal medicine because of low income, but have to admit that I have become a

tad more cynical in my outlook. Most people have a TV/video, rent videos,

playstation games, smoke, drink alcohol, go on holiday (whatever one of those

is- I can't be the only herbalist who used up all their holiday entitlement to

go to summer school!). I've also started charging for missed appointments,

having realised that some people, if they start to feel better, or if they

haven't taken all their medicine and have some left, just don't bother to turn

up, and I am left sat twiddling my thumbs and earning no money. I don't have so

many missed appointments now, and have lost precisely two patients because of

this, whom I wasn't really so sorry to lose anyway. So that's my contribution. I

have offered to barter with people, and so far have done this with an

aromatherapy friend, who gives me a massage in return for her medicine, and a

potter friend, who made me some lovely terracotta bowls to display my dried

herbs in when I do talks, in return for hers.

3. re; neuro/psycho/endocrine/immunology discussion.

I read a book some years ago entitled 'Healing and the Mind', a series of

transcribed interviews with various medics, which explored this field. Author

Bill Moyers, ISBN 0-7225-2973-2; published by Thorsons in 1993

Cheers!

Ali

Alison Morton MNIMHGet more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download :

Recommended Posts