Alternatively, they could fund a political party that promises to bring back child labor and forced indentured servitude.
Musk is already trying to build his own version of a company town in Texas and “encourages” employees to sleep in the office. So those things probably aren’t too far from our future if his friendly neighborhood political party has its druthers.
Yeah, I know it’s “Dilbert”, but it’s from 1994. Scroll down to the second cartoon from the bottom.
I recently had a blood draw scheduled, well in advance of the planned draw (it was a routine verification of blood levels to check a medication dosage, and a couple other things were added a week or so before).
3 days beforehand, I visited the ER for a nasty case of diarrhea.
I saw someone at my gastro’s office the day befoore the blood draw. She wanted me to get a repeat CBC (complete blood count) to see if numbers had changed since the ER visit.
My doctor’s office would NOT allow that test to be done along with the blood draw already scheduled for there. “No Outside Lab Work!!!”.
I should have cancelled that visit, and just had it all done at a local major lab’s location. Instead, I had to have TWO blood draws - the previously-scheduled one, and 5 days later, went to a lab location to get the other one.
Honestly, I think it’s a territory / power thing.
The two blood draws (oh, and I have shitty veins; the bruise from that first one has only just now faded, 2+ weeks out) were enhanced by the IV at the ER, and a second IV that second week, for contrast for a CT scan. I felt like a pincushion. Yes, both of those would still have been needed, but I was annoyed anyway.
As a fellow American, i find all this rather shocking. I’ve gotten test results shared between doctors and even between different hospital systems without too much fuss. I mean, for some reason, sharing mammogram results is always a pain, but it’s a “mail a physical piece of paper around” pain, not a “we can’t do that” pain.
Same here - I don’t know if I could get one doctor’s office to draw blood for a test a different doctor wanted ( I’ve never tried it) but sharing test results is very rarely a problem. I’ve had multiple doctors/hospitals that all use MyChart and I think when I linked those accounts, I gave all the doctors access to all the records. And since most of my providers are in the 21 century, sharing doesn’t even involve the office staff most of the time- I can print the blood test results or mammo report and bring them with me
Yes, the mammogram is harder because they send a copy of the actual images, not just the report. Blood tests are just a number and i can ask mychart to transfer them.
I don’t know if the phlebotomist associated with my doctor would do blood tests requested by a doctor at another hospital, probably not. But I’m sure i could get both requests sent to a third party lab, like qwest, and then have the results sent to whoever needed them.
The horror show continues.
MiniMouse is at University. Got sick enough that if was painful to breathe. Tried to go to the campus health center (for which we pay $3k a year), no appointments available for 72 hours.
Goes to urgent care, has an appointment for 2pm. Sees no one until 3:35. NP orders some tests and x-rays. More waiting for each. Left at 6:30 after having been with “healthcare providers” for less than 15 minutes of the preceding 4.5 hours.
Eleven days later, have not received radiology or blood test results, nor the promised follow-up call. Calls made to the facility go to voicemail and no calls have been returned. They prescribed an inhaler and antibiotics. And billed my credit card $670.
She called her pediatrician (at home). They told her not to use the inhaler or take the antibiotics.
That’s what I should have done, back in September - my gastro’s office wanted me to repeat my CBC after my ER visit, to confirm that some “you’ve got an infection” numbers were going back to normal. I had a regular appt for a blood draw at my regular doc’s office - and they would not do that order along with theirs. If I’d thought of it at the time, I’d have asked them to just send it all to a regular LabCorp location - which is more convenient to my house, too.
Actually that’s sort of what I wound up doing. When I got my results from the doc-office draw, it did not include my thyroid levels - which was the main reason for the draw. So they sent an order directly to LabCorp; then the following week, I went to the LC location to get both that and the gastro’s order dealt with (naturally, they found the thyroid test results right about then; they had done the test but NOT REPORTED IT right away).
I had needles in veins 4 times in 10 days. That was fun.
Somewhat related to the mammogram thing: I looked online at my breast MRI report. And then I saw a link named “links” or some such. I clicked on it - and it was all the MRI images. Which were not terribly informative for me - I mean, I could see they were breast-shaped, but all the little blurs and non-blurs and light and dark bits meant roughly nothing. I looked at my mammogram results on that hospital’s portal (different from where I had the MRI done) and it’s just a text report. They are in agreement that there are no problems, at least!
Another doctor visit, another sign of degradation of “care” in health care.
Now before I see the doctor, not only do I have my blood pressure taken by a nurse, but I have to review my chart and visit “objectives” with a “medical assistant”.
At least according to my doctor, the Medical Assistant has no medical training, but is there to ensure that the visit is NOT coded as a regular office visit (generating a measly $192) but something more lucrative.
I look forward to my bill.
My doctor is looking forward to retirement. He’s about 60.
If an actual nurse is taking your blood pressure, that’s more than I get. At my usual clinic, that, along with the weight, height and pulse ox, is taken by the medical assistant. I think they have some training, possibly an associate’s degree.
At least those things really don’t require much training. My beef with ANYONE doing a BP check is they have you come into the room then immediately do that measurement, among many other common BP-taking errors.
My doctor always retakes my blood pressure.
He’s a good guy, really cares about his patients, but whatever practice he joins ends up getting bought up by the same behemoth that is consolidating outpatient care in this area.
This is the third practice he’s been in (in the last 20 years) that has been taken over and then he’s hammered with non-medical folks setting productivity targets and implementing best practices.
There are tiny pediatrician practices, but for internal medicine it’s hard to find a small group.
I briefly worked in IT/Telecoms in a “practice management” consultancy in the 1990s. I thought the whole focus on “yield” was contrary to medical ethics and left. That was penny-ante stuff compared with what’s going on now.
Around here (high priced DC suburbs), a lot of those are going concierge (where you have to pay a fee just to be on their caseload). I had two in a row do that.
I asked my gyn for recommendations. She suggested I look at a larger practice. I did (associated to one of the big hospital ecosystems here)… and after several years, THAT doctor moved to another state. I quipped that I was beginning to take this personally.
Even in the big practices, doctors move on. The one who inherited me there left (to move to another DC suburb; I’d have followed her but it’s on the other side of the city and a horrible drive to get there). I’m now on my third doctor at that practice - but at least I’ll remain on the office’s caseload.
Medical assistants are sort of a middle ground between CNAs and LPNs. Their training usually takes a year, or thereabouts.
I remember almost 30 years ago, when I was in college, I got really sick. I had trouble breathing, I had severe congestion in my lungs. It was like I could never really catch my breath. I was worried that I had pneumonia.
I went into a Group Health clinic because I was still on my parents’ health care and I was looked at by a physician assistant. He briefly checked be out then prescribed me a nasal spray. And that was it. I didn’t even really get a chance to discuss it with him.
My nose/sinuses weren’t even congested.
I don’t even think the PA paid any attention to my lungs despite the fact that it’s why I was there. I’d sat forever waiting for someone to check me out and when he finally arrived he seemed in a hurry and barely did any tests, like I was wasting his time.
I just said fuck it since the crappy health care didn’t let me see a real doctor, and with a lot of rest and limited activity it cleared up on its own after a couple of weeks.
It was one of many incidents that made me wary of going to hospitals for most of my life.
To be fair, physician assistants aren’t “real” doctors but they are trained medical professionals able to treat and diagnose lots of stuff.
That guy didn’t seem to be trained very well though.
Though honestly doctors aren’t always better. If I trusted everything doctors said I’d be dead today. When I couldn’t even swallow saliva after a throat blockage, a doctor was going to schedule a procedure days in the future. I had to remind her I’d be dead by then because humans can’t go that many days without water, and it had already been over 24 hours at that point for me.
Thank fucking God I wasn’t an idiot and knew better. They got me on an IV to get water in me somehow and scheduled an emergency endoscopy later that day to clear the blockage from my throat.
So, I’ll pile into this thread. I live in a Red State in the USA. I have private health insurance through my employer. It covers me, my wife, and both of my adult children, who are in their early 20’s. The total premiums that are paid on my behalf, including by my employer, are about 1,400 per month, with 20% of the premiums from me, and 80% from the employer. We get yearly physicals for no cost. We pay specialists $35 co-pays. And we do use specialists, unfortunately. Our pharmacy costs are usually between $10 to $20 for a prescription refill, after we satisfy a deductible of…can’t remember the amount, but I think it’s in the $200-$500 range.
Last year, my daughter got foot/ankle surgery. The cost for this was over $3,000. She needed it to correct a congenital abnormality that was causing her a lot of pain. The surgery worked out good. She’s no longer in pain. But the surgery center tried to double-bill, up to about $6-7K. We had to fight them for a few months, and they finally “found” their mistake, and backed off.
My wife has type-one diabetes, allergies, and asthma, and her biggest irritation is when our insurance “no longer covers” a specific medicine she needs. It happens every year, and she has to argue with them to get her “coverage” back. It’s a tactic that gets used annually.
So, on top of my premiums, when you total everything up, I’m guessing I spent another $6000 last year for medical, pharmacy, dental, vision. This year might be closer to $3,000, because we don’t have the surgery.
I can afford this easily. But alot of people can’t.
I was in Europe in 2022. A guy that was on our river cruise (Rhine River) got some sort of stomach virus, and was dehydrated & sick. He was taken to a hospital in France for an overnight stay via ambulance, and then taken back the next day to our boat. His cost was Zero, Zilch, Nothing.
My brother has Medicare & Medicaid. He pays nothing out of pocket, except for Dental & Vision (I think).
My mother has Medicare Advantage. She seems fairly happy with her coverage, to my knowledge, although we haven’t talked much about it.
Anyway, I used to argue in favor of the US system a few years back, but no more. I thought the ACA would get us eventually to UHC, but I was wrong. We’re still a nightmare. The ACA was a step in the right direction. It cut uninsureds in half. The healthcare/GDP has flattened since the ACA was implemented. But it wasn’t enough by a long shot. We need more reforms. We’ll never be a unified single-payer system, IMO. But we can & should move in that direction, at least partially.
It’s amazing how many countries can somehow afford this kind of public health care and they’re doing just fine. Yet for some reason it’s impossible in the United States, which has the highest GDP in the world.
