I think your first remark is exactly the point. If the visits are useless then this is a crappy doctor scamming money and time out of patients and insurance companies, if the visits are important then asking OP’s friend to come in (for being over 4 months late on a 3-month checkup) sounds very reasonable to me. I think Zyryab’s suggestion of asking a doctor to Turing Test this makes a lot of sense—maybe the checkups are more valuable in certain life stages/demographics/early after diagnosis? Maybe the checkup is something more complicated than recording the HbA1c levels? I’m surprised to hear that without outside medical information the doctor is guilty until proven innocent.
I think your first remark is exactly the point. If the visits are useless then this is a crappy doctor scamming money and time out of patients and insurance companies, if the visits are important then asking OP’s friend to come in (for being over 4 months late on a 3-month checkup) sounds very reasonable to me. I think Zyryab’s suggestion of asking a doctor to Turing Test this makes a lot of sense—maybe the checkups are more valuable in certain life stages/demographics/early after diagnosis? Maybe the checkup is something more complicated than recording the HbA1c levels? I’m surprised to hear that without outside medical information the doctor is guilty until proven innocent.