And that's the problem in a nutshell.
Posted on 03/23/2006 3:47:56 PM PST by neverdem
Sure, some HMO's are horrific. Others are quite good. We all have different health care needs. What is truly horrific is that our choices are often limited to what our employers or the gov't provide.
Too bad we can't all choose the type of insurance that suits us best.
By the way in the ER about 1/3 of our "customers" never pay us a dime. Imagine if we really treated them like deadbeat customers instead of patients....
Often, it's who you know. Our family doctor is also a personal friend. He will go to any length to pull strings for us.
I had to have an angiogram in September and he was there, at 7 AM to watch, and gave me the results as soon as they wheeled me out of the Cath lab. He will also call the ER if anyone in our family has to make a visit, at an ungodly hour, and believe me they take us to triage immediately.
His staff loses patience with him because he will not be rushed when he's with a patient. He's an angel!
My dr schedules 6 patients/hour and words 3 days a week.
/trying desperately not to burst-*ping!*
60 minutes? Try waiting two hours for a 1 minute appointment. Doctor wanted to show me some lab results, no need to undress or weigh in or anything. I was really ticked off.
What really got me was when the drug company sales rep got to see him before me. Of course she was hot but still.
The author of this OpEd column is an OpEd Contributor, i.e. a guest columnist. The thrust of the column was for patients to refuse to be treated like crap. I you read to the end of the column you could have noticed the following:
Peter Salgo, a professor at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, is an internist and anesthesiologist, as well as the host of the PBS series "Second Opinion."
I have gone to a naturopath a few times. I remember sitting in the waiting room a little annoyed that I had to wait so long for her to finish with a patient. It was probably half an hour to 45 minutes. I say only a little because she spent just as long on my appointment. Of course, I was also the last appointment of the day.
"What really got me was when the drug company sales rep got to see him before me. Of course she was hot but still."
Same thing happened to me too. Boy, did I let the receptionists know it:)
Actually they apologized and told me that the drug rep did not see the doctor and only got a signature.
drat, correction
If you read to the end of the column you could have noticed the following:
Peter Salgo, a professor at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, is an internist and anesthesiologist, as well as the host of the PBS series "Second Opinion."
And that's the problem in a nutshell.
I hope those who died and were organ doners didn't become "suppliers."
-PJ
Zactly.
I am liking what I am imagining ;-)
Animal House reference! WOOHOO!
I learned the hard way.
After trying to ride out what I can only describe as a horrific pain in what I thought was my stomach area, I checked myself in, for the very first time, into Johns Hopkins Emergency, here in Baltimore.
After describing the pain level as a 10 out of 10 the nurse told me to wait until my name was called. I waited close to four hours before I was asked to walk up to another part of the hospital where after scans were taken and another two hours went by, I was finally diagnosed with having a Kidney stone and then, and only then was given something (morphine) for my pain.I was then told to go home.
That almost 8 hours of torture was quickly followed by a hefty bill.
When I shared my experience with neighbors they let me on a little secret everyone in Baltimore except me , knows.
When you go to the ER, even if it's a headache....you scream and cry before you even get out of your car.....you demand a wheel chair, you can't even walk...your dieing.....Your gonna sue..... That explains why about 30 people went ahead of me and, the guess was, unlike me, most of them probably were not covered by health insurence.
I will never bad mouth a dope addict again.
They still trying to make doctors or just licensed pill pushers.....?;O)
Seems all they want to do these days is treat a symptom vs the cause.
Thank you for posting that clear dose of reality.
I went to a doctor last summer for what I assumed was an intestinal flu. The doctor was only willing to see me for about ten minutes. He might have been willing to go longer, but he ended the conversation rather abruptly by saying "you need to go the hospital right now."
It turns out I had a ruptured appendix. I was rushed into surgery and pulled through.
One hundred years ago, the plan for patients with my condition was "you die." Believe me, I'll take the hurry-up nature of modern medicine any day.
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