Posted on 04/28/2024 8:09:05 AM PDT by 4Runner
Made an appointment to see a medical specialist affiliated with a large hospital and teaching institution located in Tampa, Florida.
The appointment was made two months in advance, the office was that far booked up and its services apparently that much in demand.
On the day of the appointment, I arrived twenty minutes early, produced my insurance and identity cards, and was given a portable tablet to complete some documentation.
Just about everything I had to electronically sign on the tablet was about disclosing my personal medical history to anyone who asked for it, and agreeing that anything done to me or said to me by anyone in that office was protected from any claims against it or them by me, the patient.
Then they wanted every piece of information on my smoking and alcohol usage habits, and finally I was asked if I had had my most recent Covid shot. Of course my answer was negative. Never have had one, and never will.
Fast forward three (3) hours later. I am still in the waiting room, when one of the facilitators finally calls out my first name.
(You see, they don't address you by your last name anymore. Just first names. To avoid having to call you Mister or Missus or even Ms. God forbid these SS troops should have to show any respect.)
So I go with her to a computer, where she turns to me and tells me I am the wrong person. There is someone else in the waiting room with the same first name as mine, and he is the person who is next to be seen by the physician, not me.
The time was 1:45pm. I tell her courteously I've been waiting since 10:45am to see the doctor. That's three hours. Can she tell me when I will be called? I then am escorted to an exam room, and the door is closed.
Fifteen minutes later the doctor comes in and begins speaking into a dictating machine. Details he is reading from my last visit to their office, which had been in 2014, ten years ago.
It reminded me of the one time I had needed to give a deposition in a law suit. The next thing he does, is tell me he is ordering an MRI for me. And when he gets the results of the scan, I will be called back in to discuss the findings with him.
I got three whole minutes with this man. AFTER HAVING WAITED THREE SOLID HOURS TO SEE HIM. And was given an order sheet for an MRI for my trouble.
I finally figured out this physician had taken a one-hour lunch break at the same time I had been waiting for my appointment with him, scheduled for 12:30pm.
This was why no one on the staff had offered any explanation or apology to me as to why I had been kept waiting for so long for so little.
My insurance company told me the co-pay for the test is $220.00.
Talk about a caste system.
I put N/A as answer to most of their questions. They don’t care.
Everything wrong with American society today is because of the belief that no bad thing must ever happen to anyone. The government MUST rescue us. From everything. Government oversight rules all and ensures that everything is perfect for everyone. How’s that working? The world would be a better place is government shrugged and said, “Yup. Some folks can’t get health insurance.” But we seem to find such a thought intolerable. Voila! ObamaCare.
Wait until they dump millions of illegals into the system who get it free.
Not argument from me on that!
I am sure you have noticed this but
“... belief that no bad thing must ever happen to anyone. The government MUST rescue us. ...” is very much a female mental construct! It now dominates us politically!
As the spouse of a now retired doctor ( I am a retired nurse) all I can say is don’t access the healthcare system if you despise doctors. Grow your own herbs to treat any medical problems you may have. Use the kitchen knife if you need surgery. You can probably sterilize it in the dishwasher. 80% of physicians are now employed by corporate interests, as ( for various reasons) Obamacare made it difficult to run private practices, and made it financially advantageous for corporations to buy up practices. Physicians no longer can make their own schedules, hire employees that are good for the practice, and in order to make a profit the schedulars overbook them. Thats why you have the long wait time. My husband could not control his schedule, how many patients he saw per day, and the main thing his overlords wanted was productivity. Many doctors are boomers, and a lot retired early due to the demands of practicing now. An example: historically when a physician reaches a certain age, he no longer has to take ER call. However, that has changed. My local hospital tries to force a surgeon to take call ( which means you are up all night taking care of trauma) when he was hitting 70 years old. This surgeon had a small practice, trying to keep his finger in the game doing minor procedures,but retired when they tried to force him into taking call. The next step in the downgrading of medicine is hiring midlevel nurse practitioners who take online courses to get their degree. They are cheaper hires, and can charge almost the same as a physician. Thats where your healthcare is headed, and maybe you deserve worse healthcare if you hate physicians.
I am fortunate. Participate in a boutique deal. My GP has always been solid and get personal attention even before he converted to boutique business. Always get right in and get good response to mris blood tests etc. maybe his connections?
Took adult daughter year ago with Covid. She is not in any special medical deal. Over 2 hours waiting in hospital ER. At least 40 to 50 Spanish speakers and we two whites. She could not take the in chair wait any longer so back to her home.
Suffered another few days on her own.
That’s where we are.
Bkmrk
There is a surgeon I know whose large multispecialty practice was sold to a hospital corporation due to the high cost and legal landmines of running a private practice. He went to corporate to make a complaint about how the employees in the practice were being treated by the overlords. The overlord representing the hospital corporation told him- we own you now and we are not going to listen to your complaints. Thats how it is now. Healthcare is being run by MBAs who only want productivity , the more patients seen means more money for the overlords, long waits and short appointment times for patients. It really gets me angry when people say they hate doctors, they don’t know the pressures they are under. I was so glad my husband retired. It was such a relief because I saw the stress he was under.
My wife was having some serious intestinal issues. She called her GI group and they said they could get her in in three months. She went to her FP, saw the NP who ordered some tests that showed nothing. They put her on a MiraLAX regiment. She seems to be better. Hopefully, it was nothing serious. We may never know unless she dies and they do an autopsy.
Healthcare is a busine$$.
Knights Hospitaller: Active c. 1099–present
The order lost all territorial influence with the French invasion of Malta in 1798. In the aftermath of 1798, several Protestant orders were split off, with the remaining Catholic order being re-established, as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, in 1822.
Knights Templar: Active c. 1119 – c. 22 March 1312
After their dissolution in 1312, several secret societies formed which eventually evolved into organizations such as the Freemasons and the Reconstituted Order of Christ.
The influence of both orders, separate or combined, was significant.
The Hospitallers and the Knights Templar became the most formidable military orders in the Holy Land.
Many of the more substantial Christian fortifications in the Holy Land were built by the Templars and the Hospitallers. At the height of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Hospitallers held seven great forts and 140 other estates in the area.
Looking at word origins and symbols can be enlightening. The Knights Hospitaller insignia is a white cross within a red background. The insignia of the American Red Cross is a red cross within a white background.
The "healthcare industry" that we know today - is derivative of a medieval (secretive) military order. Sounds about right.
Betcha they do, and that there’s an ICD-10 code for refusing to answer...
A) While cataract surgery is routine, not all cases are.
B) And just because a procedure is routine doesn’t mean some practioner can’t screw it up.
Just some food for thought.
Most Americans have no idea how close to collapse we are.
Well stated, thanks
Obama”Care” was designed to eliminate older Americans who knew what this country once was and who might hold some traditional values.
Everything about “healthcare” has been wrong since that abomination by the Obamanation and his friends. /rant
‘Most Americans have no idea how close to collapse we are.”
Everything is broken in this country. Education, health care, legal system, government, business, religion, and culture. Good service is almost non-existent in most businesses involved in “service” industries. There are no longer standards of performance much less commonly held beliefs as to what is right and wrong.
Dining out was once a pleasure where excellent food and outstanding service were a goal aspired to by restaurant owners. Today food delivered to a commercial kitchen by food service trucks is warmed up, shoveled on a plate, and dropped in front the customer by an indifferent server who has to be flagged down and asked to refill a drink. Appliances that once lasted for decades now need repair two to three years after purchase. Try to find a good repair person, much less find replacement parts. Education excellence in failing schools is today measured by teacher pay instead of objective student test scores under the erroneous assumption teachers currently unable to impart knowledge will suddenly improve if paid more. The tax burden on productive citizens today is many time greater than the onerous taxes our founding fathers fought the most power empire on the planet to escape.
The concept on which our republic was founded, that government exists to protect individual liberty and the rights of citizens has been turned upside down. Every year the heavy hand of government issues laws, regulations and proclamations to limit the freedom of the individual and force conformance to the whims of the bureaucracy.
Americans no longer take pride in their common love of liberty. Instead they have been divided into warring tribes base on race, ethnicity, sexual persuasion and other identities of passing fancy. Each tribe fights for a greater share of a shrinking pie which is increasingly determined by politicians and bureaucrats, not individual contribution and performance.
Everything is broken and you can feel the collapse coming. Many days I wonder if I’m seeing the world through the same eyes as a fourth century Roman terrified by the barbarian hordes gathering outside the city gates while my oblivious neighbors care only about free bread from government and securing tickets to the next gladiator event in the colosseum.
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