"i may not be a math whiz, but..."

Apparently, I work for a radiology company that is ripping off their self-pay patients by using faulty math.

Yeah. I had an argument on the phone today with a patient about MATH. It went something like this:

Patient: I just got a phone call from somebody that said ya'lls mammograms cost $280?! Is that right?
Me: Actually, our digital mammograms cost $225, and if you're able to pay the full price up front, we give you a 40% discount.
Patient: Well, what's 40% off of $225?
Me (after a moment of figuring it out on a calculator): That would be $135.
Patient: $135?! Now how'd you get that?
Me: Well, $225 times .4 (or 40%) is $90, so take $90 off of $225 and you get $135. [By the way, I know full well that you can multiply it times .6 and get the exact figure, but do you think I was going to tell this lady that? We would have been going round and round for five minutes on that one.]
Patient: Why are you doing it times 4? I may not be a math whiz, but everybody knows that when you're doing percentages, you take the percentage and put it on the outside and you divide by the other number, so you should be doing 225 divided by 40, and that's like 60 or 70 dollars! And you're telling me you're gonna charge me 135 dollars for this?! [I know, her math is off...WAY off, on all levels.]
Me: Yes, ma'am, because 225 times .4 is 40% off of $225 and it equals $135.
Patient: But why are you using 4? The way I see it, that's only 4%! You should be dividing by 40 to do percentages.
Me: Ma'am, what's half of 225? [By this point I'm attempting to reach her on SOME level.]
Patient: Well, half would be 50%, so that would be 225 divided 50...[mumbling] and that still don't come even close to $135, so I don't know where you got that! Did I learn some ancient way to do percentages when I went to high school that they don't teach anymore? [Um, yeah...HIGH school?]
Me: Ma'am, there are different ways of figuring percentages. You can divide by certain numbers or multiply by certain numbers, but if it's done correctly, they'll all come out to the same answer.
Patient: Oh, yeah, well they'll tell you what they want you to multiply or divide by so they can come up with the higher number when it should be something else and they'll make us pay more when we shouldn't be!
Me: Would you like me to put you through to our insurance specialist who can verify the cost of the procedure?
Patient: No, no, that's all right. I'll just call my doctor and see if there's somewhere else I can go.

Gladly! But I can guarantee you, we've got the best price around, by far. Not that she'd be able to figure that out.

No offense, but there are some people whose business I really don't mind us losing. People like this are the ones that either argue about the price of the exam, or they argue about how long they should have to wait, or they argue about how the tech did the procedure, or they argue about how the radiologist read the film. I, for one, don't mind seeing them pass us by.