And you are right, all doctors are not obligated to treat you regardless of ability to pay. Walk into any private practice and demand to be seen by the doctor for free. They will rightfully throw you out.
I remember several years back when I didn't have insurance. I became ill and needed attention. There was a Doc In A Box around the corner. I walked in, told them I needed to see a doctor, why, and that I didn't have insurance so could you "go easy on me with the cost". An hour later I was outta there with a bag full of samples instead of a prescription and my total bill was in the neighborhood of $125.
I posted that, by law, hospitals must accept patients, regardless of their ability to pay. I said nothing about private practice.
Hospitals are required to accept all patients: See: Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act Many hospitals in my state are closing down and consolidating now because they're going bankrupt. Because they have to accept everyone. Just like socialized medicine.
As we all know, the answer isn't socialized medicine.
Exactly what it sounds like...either acute or chronic unbearable pain.
Even though the industry cackles on and on about pain being the 5th vital sign now, it’s all too often ignored because it’s so subjective.
In my wife’s case...they (over a dozen doctors) kept telling us it was endometriosis, interstitial cystitis...in her head...
and wrote her off sent her home and I wouldn’t back down and they finally relented to a hernia repair I kept demanding they fix...I just couldn’t give up on her, and LO AND BEHOLD when they opened her up...a tumor the size of a cantaloupe is in the roof of her bladder and strangled it.
They couldn’t find it ‘cause it kept falling down inside the bladder ‘cause it was so dense and wouldn’t show up on scans! For 6 long miserable years this went on...and to this day I don’t blame the technology, the docotrs...BUT the system and insurance companies were our very worst enemy second ONLY to the tumor itself!
They denied bills...made our lives a living HELL!
Long story short, they removed her whole bladder, but EVERY time she urinated she described it as like having childbirth all over again...she’s much better now, but it’ll never be the same.