An academic friend writes:
“Recently I had to visit a ‘travel clinic,’ which is routine for people before traveling to certain regions of the world. In my case, I am scheduled to travel to West Africa [for talks].
“I visited the travel clinics, run by my own medical center, received a few shots to prevent infectious/tropical diseases. The visit took less than 5 minutes, with 2 vaccines. The bill, which I had to pay out of pocket because health insurance typically does not cover travel clinics/tropical medicine, was $550.
“And this is not done yet, this morning, I had to receive a follow-up shot, the visit took about literally 30 seconds. The bill? $180!!
“This is a crazy world, and who doesn’t have a story similar to this? I hope you have a robust program to get to the core of the problem. “
