@GracieGirl,
Not a jerk, since he explained it to me, why he was asking. I worked in medicine for a lot of years, and understand the precautions on lawsuits.
When I later worked in landscape architecture, my then boss did handshake contracts with a follow up one page letter, and those folks always showed up as repeat business. He had rather gentle contract letters that grew tighter legally over the years, but still, max, page and a half.
As it happened, he is japanese american raised with braceros in california, and most of those clients were chinese los angeles folks. The handshake was the important thing.
When I was in business later for myself with a partner, we had gentle but tight contracts, but got a lawyer in on some state highway stuff and a few other serioso biggies. Contracts got incredibly long and bored even us. Plus insurance for us exploded.
All very grim. I liked the handshake days.
So, the doctor isn't a cad, it's the reality of medical practice here, and why a lot of costs are up, up, up.