Posted on 04/26/2016 10:27:40 AM PDT by beaversmom
By
Published April 20, 2016
I write this from the hospital. Seems I have lung cancer.
My doctors tell me my growth was caught early and I'll be fine. Soon I will barely notice that a fifth of my lung is gone. I believe them. After all, I'm at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. U.S. News & World Report ranked it No. 1 in New York. I get excellent medical care here.
But as a consumer reporter, I have to say, the hospital's customer service stinks. Doctors keep me waiting for hours, and no one bothers to call or email to say, "I'm running late." Few doctors give out their email address. Patients can't communicate using modern technology.
I get X-rays, EKG tests, echocardiograms, blood tests. Are all needed? I doubt it. But no one discusses that with me or mentions the cost. Why would they? The patient rarely pays directly. Government or insurance companies pay.
I fill out long medical history forms by hand and, in the next office, do it again. Same wording: name, address, insurance, etc.
I shouldn't be surprised that hospitals are lousy at customer service. The Detroit Medical Center once bragged that it was one of America's first hospitals to track medication with barcodes. Good! But wait -- ordinary supermarkets did that decades before.
Customer service is sclerotic because hospitals are largely socialist bureaucracies. Instead of answering to consumers, which forces businesses to be nimble, hospitals report...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I'm not a doctor and don't have a clue what Stossel's diagnosis is, but the proton machine in Houston,(there are about 9-10 in the world) can destroy many tumors without cutting out your lung, or any other parts. I personally knew a man that was scheduled to have his face cut off from under his nose to his neck and then get radiation just to live maybe another year,... walked out of MD Anderson completely healed with a scalpel ever touching him after proton treatments with absolutely NO side effects. I'm still in touch with him and he sings in his church choir 4 years later.
Many doctors that tell you you will die have never even heard of Proton radiation, and if they have, they don't have one and won't send you somewhere where they don't get a cut of the money. The doctor that discovered my cancer had me scheduled for treatment in a clinic he had a financial interest in. When I said I was going to get a second opinion, he held his cool, but some in his office were openly hostile to me after just saying I wanted to go somewhere else. I haven's gone back.
Oh, and Stossel,....Stop smoking dope with your libtardian friends and maybe you won't die of cancer. I never understood the same guys that hate tobacco, smoke dope and want everybody else to.
Your doctor texts or emails you when he’s running late?
Lucky guy.
>> Your post is not even germane to this thread <<
Welcome to FR!
>> I have the cell number of a specialist who I see for an unusual condition <<
And I have the home phone number of my internist/primary care doc. He’s says I may call him whenever necessary.
But then he doesn’t accept any private insurance, nor Medicare, nor Medicaid. He runs a “cash on the barrel head” kind of shop, and he will spend almost unlimited time with any patient. Hooray for free-market medicine!
All good arguments. But I am willing to bet that none of these health care workers conveyed any of that information to him.
>> I like Stossel. But is he reliable? <<
The number one free-market personality on TV is not reliable?
Gimme a break.
But I suspect that nobody has taken the time to explain to him why he needs this or that test.
Prayers for Stossel and his loved ones...
I was treated for breast cancer about 6 yrs ago at our local cancer center. Comprehensive Blood and Cancer Center.
I wanted people that cancer was all they did......not some hospital.
I had my lumpectomy in a hospital but chose the surgeon and the hospital myself. Once I was done with the surgery all my visits were to the same doctor at the cancer center....for 5 years. They are affiliated with UCLA and I was part of a study. Couldn’t have asked for better care.
If you have insurance they know you can’t really go anywhere else. It’s the “we got you by the balls” mentality.
Hello, thank you for the article.
Well, its politics.
I had to turn off Mark Levin because every night its a Trump tirade.
Actually all talk show hosts are suspect except Savage.
Yep.
My mother, who was 92, fell and injured her eye and needed an emergency repair. It was done outpatient, and she was blind in the injured eye, and clearly too weak to go home, and in need of hospital care, she was not kept even overnight.
“Soon I will barely notice that a fifth of my lung is gone.”
Yikes. Brutal surgery. A couple close relatives didn’t last one year.
dissing a hospital from a hospital bed might not be the wisest course of action
Very sorry to hear this. Prayers up. Hang in there John.
Sad to hear that. Prayers up.
I know, they are pushing people out the door way too fast because of obummercare now— even before OC there was the trend to get people out of hospitals sooner-
Yes, the Our Father is my “go to” prayer. Very powerful. I just state my intention and say the prayer. Sending one up for John.
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