Today I accompanied my wife on her first visit to the Hotze Health and Wellness center. These doctors specialize in natural hormone replacement therapy. But that’s not the topic of this post.

Holtz also doesn’t take insurance. They got tired of fighting with insurance companies over how they should treat their patients, so they just don’t do it.

But that’s not what this post is about either.

No, this post is about how we were treated while there.

The short version: We were treated well. Very well in fact.

The long version: When we walked in to the well appointed waiting room, you could tell things were different. Yes, the place looked nice and comfortable – obviously the work of a real interior designer. But there was no going to a window and knocking for service. A pretty young woman got up from behind the desk and walked over to greet us.

After an hour drive I needed to go to the bathroom, so it was the first thing I asked for and she said “I’ll show you the way.” and walked back to it.

I don’t want to do a step by step of what happen, but the big thing was they had actually thought about making the experience better, from the way everyone was dressed to the needle they used to draw blood.

Here’s the highlights.

Didn’t see a set of scrubs the whole time we were there. Most of the staff were female – come to think about it I only saw one guy other than the doctor working there. Every one of them was in black pants or skirt and a black jacked, over a colored blouse. It was the standard uniform.

As an aside, they were an attractive bunch of women too. Hopefully that is a result of the hormone treatments. After a couple of hours surrounded by attractive women who were all dressed the same, I had a Stepford Wives flashback. But in a good way.

As a new guest – they don’t call you a patient – you have to fast before getting there early in the morning because they want to do blood work. While this is normal for doctors who want blood, once they drew the blood, they immediately asked if you wanted something to eat or drink. They provided hot chocolate and a “snack plate”, which consisted of some nuts, celery, cherry tomatoes, and sandwich meat. Why don’t other doctors do this? To me its a no brainer. I mean you know the people are hungry. But I’ve never seen it at a doctors office before.

They drew four vials of blood from my needle-chicken wife. They used a little needle on a flexible tube that led to the thing they switched the vials on. Every time I’ve seen people give blood, they use a syringe thing that they remove and add vials to. This means every time they change vials, they move the needle in your arm. Ouch! This method doesn’t do that.

We were never alone, except when my wife had to take off some clothes for a bone density scan. If you needed something, they did just tell you where it was and let you figure it out yourself. Or deny you just because it might be a little trouble for them. Now helped you find whatever it was by taking you there. If you had to go get a scan, or finalize your visit, they walked you there. Including to the pharmacy downstairs to fill your prescription.

I could go on, but to me the big thing was how I’d never been treated this well in a doctor’s office. My thought was “If this is the kind of customer service you get when you have to pay for your own medicine, I might be willing to not have insurance.”