It’s a common figure of speech. Nobody believes steronz’ wife actually cares what he allows her to do. It’s pretty clear she allows him to hold contrary opinions as long as he goes along with what she wants anyway.
That’s true. I’m betting I don’t have protocols for evaluating a scratch from a poisoned frog, so we’re probably even. 
I probably would have gone the first and third times, and can’t really tell about the second time. Is there an Urgent Care facility nearby to you? Those aren’t 24/7, but do have evening and weekend hours. They tend to be cheaper.
Apparently there are 2 urgent care facilities nearby, and a 3rd if we have to drive a bit. I don’t know why, but it never occurred to me to take the kids there; I guess I was expecting them to say pediatric urgent care or something. Now I feel dumb. They’re all open on the weekends, and they would have been ideal for scenario #2, since they do x-rays and splints/casts. They would have handled scenario #1, but given the location of the injury I think there’s some judgement call there. They all say to go to the ER for head trauma, and given the guidelines WhyNot posted, that seems indisputable.
Thanks for the replies, everyone, especially WhyNot and DSeid for some professional opinions. I definitely feel less ignorant now. It sounds like we should be calling our pediatrician more, and I need to lower my threshold for seeking care for my kids, but it’s good to know that we’re not completely off the mark with our judgments.
OK, sorry about turning “allowed” into a thing. I guess it just grates on me.
Regarding urgent care, they are great with kids. They’re actually my first choice these days for quick doctor visits. And in my experience they will tell you if the problem is beyond their scope of expertise. Like, when my kid broke his elbow, they X-rayed it, found that it was broken, and then sent us to Children’s Hospital to get it set by the pediatric experts. But we’ve taken the kids there for ear infections, nonstop coughing (it had been going on for >2 weeks) and, memorably, the time that my daughter stuck a peanut up her nose and then couldn’t find it. I was 95% sure the peanut had just fallen out onto the floor but we couldn’t find it, she was terrified, and I thought we’d better get it checked by a pro. (It was not, in fact, hiding inside her nose.)
Should I check to see if these places will take my insurance before the next emergency? Or are they pretty universal?
Huh - ours has an answering service to reach them after hours. I’m a little surprised yours doesn’t. In the absence of that, yes I’d have taken my kids (or at least spoken with someone over the phone) on all 3 of the occasions you mentioned.
It wouldn’t hurt to know beforehand. The one near us takes some insurance and not others.
Yes.
No.
You definitely want to see if they take your insurance, if there’s enough time to do so (and if it’s urgent enough that there is not enough time to check, you need to be calling 911 anyway).
You might check in advance just to have the information on file.
If it’s a true emergency, insurance would cover it regardless but would require you to transfer to an in-network place as soon as possible. I don’t know what they’d do if you felt it was a real emergency, and then got there and the ER treated and then said “well really, it coulda waited a few weeks”.
One ‘fun’ story re in-network, that I heard secondhand back in the late 90s: a preemie had to be kept in the NICU. The hospital was in-network. But the neonatology practice that was the sole provider for the NICU… was not.
We’re not prone to rushing off to the ER, Urgent Care Clinic or doctors office, but not anti-doctor either.
I definitely would have gone to the ER for incident one. No questions.
For incident two, probably Urgent Care if there as a lot of swelling, walk in clinic at the drug store or called the drs office if it wasn’t swelling up, but very painful.
For incident three, considering the child is under two, emergency room. If it was an 8 yr old who fell from the bunk bed, probably not even urgent care. I’d just keep an eye on him and maybe call the nurse advisory line.
I had that happen with my youngest son, in NJ in 2005. Insurance company paid the bill at whatever their out of network % was (60% of “Reasonable & Customary” I believe). Neonatology company said to appeal for more $ from Insurance company, did that, Insurance company denied, and Neonatology practice said they would write off whatever additional they had charged (Something like 5 or 6 grand I think).
I have to throw my vote in with those stating that all those situations required some sort of medical attention. Ideally you would have access to your pediatrician (or an exchange) or urgent care, but if you don’t the ER is your next option.
Were I in the same position, I would’ve taken my child to the ER for any suspected head injury (especially for such a high fall or bleeding) and to urgent care for the hand injury. Fevers are usually wait and see, coughing is wait and see, but especially at two years old, a suspected head injury or possible broken bone should be addressed as soon as possible, even if you don’t think anything will come of it.
My kid is about the same age as the OP’s, and I also tend not to go to the emergency room easily because it so often is the experience of having to pay to be told something I could have figured out for myself.
Situation #1 would have depended a lot on what the wound looked like, I could have gone either way as long as the bleeding stopped at home (which it sounds like it did).
Situation #2, probably not although I would have kept a close eye on whether the child continued to experience pain, or reluctance to use that hand. Hand injuries are my favorite kind (well, relatively, you know) because it’s so easy to tell (at least with my kid) if she starts favoring the other hand.
Situation #3, I probably would have gone to the ER.
Some of this is possibility mitigated by where I live - going to the ER is a daunting process.
My pediatrician encourages me to call her at home, so I would have for #1 and #3, but not #2 unless I felt like the situation wasn’t improving. Her office is connected to an urgent care facility that is open on weekends (although not overnight) which has been a blessing.
Same thing in Washington state in 2002 for us. Except in our case, we ended up being on the hook for the full $7k of the neonatologist’s bill.
I agree with the prevailing opinions. We use the after hours on-call service of our pediatrician quite a bit, and urgent care for those pesky weekend injuries and illnesses.
One thing I wanted to note is you may just have a very adventurous, physical kid on your hands, which means you should prepare for more medical visits than seems “normal” among your circle of friends. Some families have more timid kids or children who prefer less daring activity, so you can’t gauge whether it’s necessary to hit the ER by reference to others, you know what I mean? All those cases deserved a medical check, and now that you know how to access less radical medical options during evenings and weekends, hopefully you’ll feel more comfortable just going and getting things checked out.
And speaking as a high-anxiety mom, it CAN be difficult to sort out what needs actual intervention and what is my OCD running ridiculously worst-case scenarios. But usually my much more laid-back husband will say, “What’s the harm of taking them in?” And if you are just calling the answering service or hitting the urgent care, of course, there isn’t much downside, compared with waiting in (and paying for) the ER.
It wasn’t just you. If he doesn’t allow her, wouldn’t he just say “my wife took him to the ER”?
Yes, that’s what I should have said. Or more accurately, my wife asked me if I thought he needed to go to the ER, and I said yes. So she went.
What I meant was that this wasn’t the first time she’d asked me if I thought a child needed emergency medical treatment, but it was the first time I said yes, as opposed to my typical response of “walk it off, kid.” Typically, her instinct is to rush to the ER, but she tends to defer to my calmer judgment. I was being cheeky by characterizing my answer as permission. At no point have I ever used physical or verbal intimidation to prevent my wife from taking our kids to the hospital, nor would I.
You seem to have your shorts in a bunch. Listen, the parents are co-parents, they need to coordinate. Ease up.
We can get **steronz **castrated later.
Dude. I said I was sorry. Get your own shorts out of a bunch. Although if the OP had provided his very sensible and reasonable explanation after my first mention of this, nobody’s shorts would have been bunched at all.
My shorts were in a bunch. I initially had typed up a version of what I ultimately posted, but went with the snippy response instead. My apologies. 