Want a scan? Meet me in the Flamingo Room

Let's say you needed a scan - a CT scan or one of the others. Where would you expect to go to get this scan? A hospital, right? Or a walk-in clinic.

Would you expect to go to a motel? Yesterday, I was reading the Herald-Tribune when a yellow flyer fell out of it onto my lap. It was advertising various scans "at below-market prices." For example, you could get a "deep leg vein scan" for only $60 and a "pancreas scan" for another $60

This is how Florida is different from Rhode Island, where we lived the past 25 years. You would never see this kind of thing advertised up there, let alone in a Sunday newspaper flyer. Even though getting an "aorta artery scan" is only $45 I doubt that any of the people I know would rush to this company, UltraLife, for a scan. New Englanders prefer to be conservative; stick with their own physicians.

These scans, by the way, were being administered for one day only at a nearby Comfort Inn, not exactly a confidence builder there. And if you didn't like that, they were being offered in nearby Bradenton at a Quality Inn (the Flamingo Room, to be exact).

I think I'll pass.