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Thread: Ill tell you why people want natl health care...

  1. #1
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    Ill tell you why people want natl health care...

    Yesterday was the first time I went to a doctor since 2007. I went to a walk in urgent care center. Talked to a doctor who spent maybe 3 minutes with me, did some blood and urine tests. Doc says I need to go to the ER.


    Go to the ER, and wait 3 hrs before I go back to a room. Before anyone even sees me this administrator lady comes back, and asks for a debit card to pay them 200. I told the lady Ive been here for hours, and have not even been seen yet. You can tell she feels bad so she says she will come back. Doctor talks to me for 2 minutes and before I can even explain all my symptoms he is out of the room and says I need a CT scan. Alright that might explain what has been going on for 3 months. Do more urine and blood tests. Ask nurse after waiting another 2-3 hours what the blood test results are. She says she will go get them and come back. Never shows back up. Go for CT scan and the tech says results will be back in 45 min to an hour. Wait another hour and doc comes in, says everything came back normal, and Im being discharged. Wait another 30 minutes with an IV in my arm...I start standing in the doorway. Finally nurse shows up, gives me my referral to a GI doctor, takes the IV out, and says "you're free to leave the building."


    Let me guess the bill for this is going to be 2-3k and the total time someone spent with me was maybe 10 minutes half of that being the CT scan lady. Instead of trying to figure out what the problem is after a couple tests I just get shuffled out the door. Keep in mind this is a hospital where they do surgeries, births, and everything.


    So yesterday I spent 150 at the urgent clinic and who knows how much at the ER for NOTHING. But when I called around ahead of time to find a specialist to see they won't see you without a referral, and won't even see self pay if you tell them you will pay at the time of treatment in cash or card. I hate the fact you have to spend hundreds of dollars with one doctor just for them to tell you to go somewhere else. This time it was 150 at one doctor to go see another doctor for likely thousands, and I still got told to go somewhere else. All told I spent 15 minutes with a medical professional yesterday...


    I will never go to his hospital again. In 2007 when my kid had his (first) fall we took him here, and the doctor assured us he was fine. 2 days later he was sitting on my wifes lap, his head rolled back in his head, and he spent 2 days at a childrens hospital for a brain bleed.


    I just feel like its a sham, they want people in and out the door to rake up ER fees, and then just passing the persons issue onto someone else. This is not the first time this has happened. Next time I don't care if I have to drive 30 minutes to an hour for an ER.


    To top it off since Im "self pay" I already got a call today from some sub contractor company asking about getting enrolled in low income assistance program to pay the bill. I haven't even gotten a bill, and that bitch was in the room asking for money before a nurse or doctor even talked to me. It just strikes me as being about $$$$ and not the patient. My wife is in home health nursing right now through a top 100 company and their company would NEVER treat patients like that. Next time Ill drive the distance to go to her company's hospital not this circus they have going on in this city.

  2. #2
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    I hate hospitals too. I cant freaking stand the bull shit and condescension. The price tag is unbearable and unsustainable. Insurance companies are the medical equivalent of welfare these days, if I have my facts straight. My dad swears by the Mexican system of paying reasonable prices for services rendered, without hoops to jump through. My step mom was very ill from a lower GI blockage. They spent $400 in Mexico for 5 star service with a smile, and saved my step mom's life after dropping $2000 here in the US for some basic, inconclusive testing.

    I think under government control, it will only get worse. Just my take.
    "Oh, its a wonderful day! My sun is shining, my birds are chirping, my humongous chicken defeated Elmo." Huxley

  3. #3
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    An associate was in a staff meeting with the physician who had been hired to spearhead the formation of a new comprehensive cancer center at a local hospital (a "nonprofit," no less) when he inadvertently referred to their future patients as "market share."

    Kind of says it all.

  4. #4
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    I'm sure Obamacare will fix all of this.
    SSG Jimmy Ide- KIA 28 Aug 10, Hyderabad, AFG

    1SG Blue Rowe- KIA 26 May 09, Panjshir, AFG.

    RIP Brothers

  5. #5
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    sounds like a visit to the military hospital at duty station I just left without having to swipe my CC though

  6. #6
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    Both wife and I work in health care, so I see it from the inside...

    For TRAMA CARE, we have the best system in the world. There is no where in the world I would rather be than in the USA if anything TRAMATIC happens...

    We also excel in DETECTION of disease...

    But after that, it goes downhill, mainly because it IS A MONEY MACHINE! It is all about the billables with as little "face time" as possible to keep up QUANTITY. Not that they don't care, as everyone I know of who deals with patients CARES and wants the best for their patient... But it is a meat market... Plain & simple. Even so bad that they keep rolling in TERMINAL cancer patients, some with days or weeks left, to get additional treatments (big $$$)... It is sad...

    Worse, they treat the SYMPTOMS, not to core of DIS-EASE, which is CELLULAR MALFUNCTION. Dis-ease is a cellular SCREAM... The warning lights our Creator gaves us to tell us something is WRONG... But we cut, burn, radiate and medicate instead of solve the cellular dis-order.

    Rant off...

    Rmpl
    "Our destruction... will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence..."
    ...Daniel Webster, June 1, 1837

  7. #7
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    File a complaint with your health insurance company AND with the state.
    I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. - John Adams

    The AK guys are all about the reach around. - Garand Thumb.

  8. #8
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    if you think its expensive now, wait until its "free"

  9. #9
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    Speaking as the spouse of a nurse. There is a reason for this.

    Most of the people who walk in the ER don't pay and don't have insurance to pay and the hospital easts the costs or gets underpaid by some government program that sets reimbursement rates at significantly below the actual cost of service for government program patients.

    Because they won't usually end up getting paid for the service, they try and minimize their outlays in providing the service. Hence the crappy service. (That and the liability issue which has them order a lot of tests to CYA with and also because "outcome based medicine" is stressed where "best practices" are compiled and if a doctor is not following what some bean counter somewhere said is the normal response to a complaint, they are in trouble, so you get all kinds of expensive tests)

    So the costs get shifted to the private citizen payer, who usually has some sort of insurance program through their job or their spouse's job. These insurance companies look at every higher costs so they have all sorts of programs set up to try and minimize costs (this referral BS etc). They scrutinize everything because they have to try and control their costs.

    Lots of people, both citizens, and non-citizens, don't end up paying for their care, so they don't follow doctors instructions, take their meds, etc since they are not paying for it and they think they can go back to the hospital whenever something is wrong. Since they are not paying for it they don't care. So-called "frequent fliers."

    The system is screwed up and at the root of it is government intrusion into the system.
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  10. #10
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    they call it "practicing medicine" for a reason.
    Last edited by rob_s; 08-09-11 at 22:21.

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