When was the last time you walked into a restaurant and were handed a price-less menu?

I recall a few occasions in a my dating days when I was invited to a posh restaurant and given the "lady's" menu sans prices, while my date got the man's version with prices. I confess that I found it very uncomfortable trying to decipher how much of a dent the filet au poivre avec pommes frites was making in my date's wallet. I spent a lot of time surreptitiously studying his face to see which items caused his eyebrows to shoot up!

In what I think is a long overdue move, physicians are displaying their ware fares. This has been one of the distinctions of the rapidly emerging retail clinics - the rapid ability of a prospective patient to be able to determine whether they could afford to drop in for care, based on the available price list.

And it seems that physician practices are sitting up and taking notice -- both in primary care and urgent care centers. Imagine if the surgeons and specialists were soon to follow.

Of course, pricing services is tricky, as it means that you have to understand your practice costs, down to the level of unit costs for providing a specific service. You may even have to call in a cost accountant. But isn't it time that you knew that anyway?