Couldn’t see that one coming.
Just another example of how the medical industrial complex made bad decisions to destroy the health of everyone.
There’s no money to be made in keeping people healthy.
No, there's not.
My 80-year-old father had emergency surgery (it was complicated and 3x longer than normal) to remove a necrotic gallbladder late last year. His PCP has been coaching him on 'living with type 2 diabetes' for >20 years rather than coaching him on healthy living (I shouldn't have to explain why that's a BAD thing).
He never recovered fully. I believe he either suffered a stroke on the operating table or in post-op. He hasn't been able to walk unassisted since. In fact, his "post-operative weakness" (the medical term they are using to describe what is typically a normal post-operative condition, but in this case is in the absence of a cogent diagnosis), meant that he couldn't go home and has been in/out of SNF (skilled nursing facility), the ER and ALF (assisted living) ever since and is now wheelchair bound (too weak to walk on his own with odd balance issues). They don't know what's wrong with him, choosing to now label his condition "MAJOR NEUROCOGNITIVE DISORDER DUE TO UNSPECIFIED DISEASE, UNSPECIFIED SEVERITY, WO BEHAVIORAL DISTURBANCE."
After his last hospitalization for UTI/sepsis (he has a semi-permanent Foley catheter because is health isn't good enough now for the surgery he declined a year ago) there was a big brouhaha over his destination because he was so weak. I inquired about palliative care consult and suddenly Kaiser took interest: Within 12 hours an MD reviewed my father and found him classified as 'hospice'. The irony: It opened the floodgates to assistance, care and contact (I suspect it opened a number of other billing codes on which they could get $$).
By then my father wasn't eating and losing weight. Fast.
Here's the irony:
Rather than continuing to decline, he began to improve. He began eating, the UTIs seemed to cease, cognitively he returned 'mostly' to normal, he gained back lost weight. He's not 100% (FAR from it: Still in SNF and wheelchair bound due to lost muscle).
He was only on hospice for just over 11 weeks. He is now OFF of hospice.
That's the irony. Now the punchline:
He had to be removed from ALL medical care - meds (including T2D meds, insulin, statins etc.) - under hospice, receiving ONLY nsaids for minor pain in his shoulder.
Clarified: He was dying under orthodox medical care and rebounded when said 'medical care' was removed, saving his life.
(we have secured him a new PCP, his first appt being next month)
I've calculated that all of the Medicare billings have totaled well over $350k, not including the SNF (his new residence).
Footnote: We still don't know his blood glucose levels because he hasn't seen his new PCP for an order to test.
His Type-2 Diabetes - which formerly required BOTH injections of insulin AND Metformin, which has led to trips to the ER for both hypo and hyperglycemia - has been completely untreated for about 3 months now and he eats whatever he wants in the facility dining room. Zero atypical diabetic symptoms in the absence of medications.
According to some doctors he should be dead, but somewhere I'm sure somebody's happy the billing statements for care have resumed...
100%. What’s the last time your doctor asked about your exercise routine or your diet details? Those 2 factors impact most to your health. MD does not stand for doctor of health. It stands for doctor of MEDICINE.