As opposed to most of the clinics that accept Medicare, Medicaid or Obamacare.
No wait, even doctors from third-world hell-holes don't accept Medicare, Medicaid or Obamacare.
Well, the worst doctor I ever went to was a white graduate of UCLA. Too bad he didn’t give a sh*t about his patients. OTOH, 2 of my last 3 docs were women from Russia, both very good.
My baby sister is a Nurse practitioner going on 25 years. She knows more than most doctors.
Who would you rather see? A first or second year resident, or my sister?
Not trying to appear rude but my sister is tops in her field. She's caught more than several misdiagnoses.
My new primary care doctor escaped from the Sudan a bunch of years ago, first going to Mayo, then here to Grand Blanc, Michigan for a first rate prep school for his children. My son, Ace, tells me from on-site experience that Sudan really is a hell hole. I'm glad my doctor, and his family made it here. And yes, I can understand him quite well.
And almost always from higher socio-economic classes than most of us here.
A friend is an MD old enough to retire. There is not a thing wrong with his credentials. He is a conservative. He has no financial worries.
He was forced to retire from his former position by the mega healthcare corporation that took over his former practice. He now works for a group practice that offers $39 office visits, low priced tests and includes antibiotics and other common meds. He does it to get even w/ the healthcare corporation and to continue to practice his profession.
The downside is he has lost his hospital affiliations and if someone needs hospitalization, they are referred to one of the MDs with privileges.
Meanwhile, his former employer bills $160 just for making an appointment and sitting in the waiting room. It costs $100 to see the orthopod’s PA and $200 to see the orthopedic MD. That is all before any diagnosis or treatment. With the way most insurance is structured these days, all that is paid by the patient against the deductible. Not to mention that the appointment charge is billed each time, the patient sees the PA and then has to make a second appointment to see the MD. It really adds up, as well as wasting a lot of time.
Yay, Walmart.
Late to this thread, don't know how I missed it. Here in SE NM there are not enough good doctors but plenty of those ones from India. They might be good knowledgeable doctors I don't know, because their communications skills (at least with Americans) are lousy.
For the past few years I have been trying to keep a common middle age type health issue in check and the two Indian doctors I was seeing didn't do much but order very expensive tests then babble unintelligibly about the results (plus, the so-called cardiologist pointing out an odd shaped fingernail and telling me I have lung cancer), provide exactly zero treatment, and then send me a big fat bill for it (thousands, above & beyond the insurance coverage).
This year I swore them off and have been going to a NP, she is a very pleasant southern gal who seems to know what she is doing, and she takes the time to explain things and I learned more about what I am dealing with in one visit than I learned in two years with Amar and Mrinal. One simple prescription and I feel 100% better overnight, and I am no longer fearful that I'm going to throw a rod any day now.
So, I'm not going to knock NPs in general, I think they have the skills to deal with 99% of what people go to "doctors" for really, and for the money you get a lot more time with them to actually learn what's going on inside and how to help yourself.