This sounds like a scene out of "Idiocracy".
Look on the bright side, at least Doctor Mengele didn’t sign off on a mandatory DNR order on her.
I’m a veteran of 20 years working in a large hospital’s ER.Those “urgent care” centers might....*might*...be OK for an earache or rash in an otherwise healthy person.For anything else,call your primary care doctor or,if that’s not possible,go to an ER.The larger the hospital the better.
you just experienced the future of’govt healthcare, today.
better off learning about taking care of stuff yourself and stocking upon necessary items now.
Having good insurance, she should have called her primary care doc (either family practitioner, internist or OB-Gyn) and asked them for a referral to an orthopedic surgeon, OR, where to go for an x-ray.
Not all urgent care centers are the horror stories that this one is, but keeping it within your own MDs would have made it easier. Sorry she had to go trough this crap, and I hope she is better.
Welcome to Obamacare.They want to put the medical insurance out of business..to pay for all the services insurance will have to go up..When it goes up so far HHS will step in and tell them they have to keep their prices down...or else the Gov. will provide the ins..Then you will have rationing from drugs, to heart stents to prosthetics to surgical procdures...and if you are too old, you will not qualify for procedures; you will be given a pill, and taken care of to die..Either this law is changed or the best medical system in the world is destroyed...
Are you in a large enough urban area to find another imaging center?
Yes, medical offices have been looking more like brothels, lately. It’s part of our movement toward Asian-like culture.
Have you taken any classes to learn the language of Pakistan or India? You will find it most helpful in the future.
This sounds like a scene out of "Idiocracy".
Per my daughter, an RN, she said the radiology department may be considered to be a separate facility, which does all of its own billing, not directly a part of the urgent care center. This could be the reason for the separate co-pay requirement.
Here’s what our experience has been with suspected broken bones.
If it’s severe, go to the ER. If it’s not urgent (i.e. bone breaking through the skin), immobilize the injury, ice it, and see the orthopedist the next day. Or have your GP fax a script to the radiology department or stand alone imagining center, and get an x-ray there to see if it’s broken, and if it is, then proceed to the orthopedist.
When you go to a walk in or even an ER, if it is broken, all they’ll do is immobilize it and tell you to see an orthopedist the next day to set or cast the limb.
That’s the way it is in our neck of the woods, and it’s been that way for many years.
I manage orthopedic surgeons.
An urgent care that cannot take and read a plain XR is scary. There are wasted steps (and extra $$) if the person interpreting the film is not the person treating the problem. Any physician who needs a radiologist to interpret a plain XR is not competent to treat the fracture. (Advanced imaging is a different discussion.)
Go to an ER, where there are orthopedists on call, and they are obligated to see you (at least once) if the ED physician consults them. Better yet, if you have an established relationship with a family doc, have them refer you straight to the ortho office. You’ll save money.
Not O/T but maybe a little: Hand injuries can be very serious and not all the symptoms present immediately. Stick by getting that X-Ray, even now. If they don’t see anything and it still smarts in a month, get her to a hand specialist for an MRI.
Seriously.
We had an urgent care in our neighborhood. They took two X-rays of a friend of mine and said he had pneumonia. When treatment was not working, he went back, and a new person was there who looked at the X-rays and said no pneumonia. They are now closed.
That said, my local emergency room was not great when I dislocated my shoulder and had to call someone in from off-duty to put it back into place after repeated attempts.
I also remember a doctor who had never heard of swimmer’s ear, apparently, and kept poking around in my daughter’s ear looking for something until she finally broke down in tears.
It all depends on the doctor, is my conclusion. You takes yer chances.
You live in Central NJ, your wife works for JNJ, she has the nearly best private health insurance available in the state, you should have driven directly to any Summit Medical Group office and would have gotten immediate first world care.
You have JNJ insurance, why the hell would you not go to a proper Medical Group office?
http://www.summitmedicalgroup.com/locations/
Your wife has a log-in for her insurance plan, or she can call HR and get a new username/password, that provides a list of providers in the JNJ network of doctors. Try that if you want more options.
I use the CentraCare clinics provided by FL Hospital (Orlando area), and had no problem. Broke my arm last yr and they handled it well.