It’s not that my naivety level has suffered any major changes lately, but my experience with my health care “provider” (aka Group Health Cooperative)  is a surreal one.

Lately I have been having some mild pain in my right hip and I went to have it looked at. After a somewhat short visit at the primary care physician I was referred to orthopedics and physical therapy. The first surprise came when scheduling the PT appointment. The time I have to wait for someone from PT to consult me from the moment I made the appointment: 3.5 weeks. That’s not surprising considering my previous experiences, but 3.5 weeks is too long. But wait! After the visit to the orthopedics, I found out that I need an MRI for them to be able to tell what’s wrong. I attempted to schedule that today and the happy event will take place on the 20th of July. That’s about 9 weeks, or if you want it in months: more than 2 months. I’ll say that again: 9 weeks! What kind of health care is this?

What do you suppose will happen in the following 9 weeks if there is something fundamentally wrong with my hip? Do you think that the way these guys choose to provide medical services is at least flawed if not absolutely moronic? Do I need to say that this is for an insurance that’s supposed to be one of the bests that there is, at least in these area?

At least, back home in Romania, if you have the money and you are willing to shell it out for a quality medical service you can do that. Think about this for a second and you’ll see how wrong the system is over here on so many levels.

That being said, I’m officially giving the longest finger to the nice Cooperative and I’m looking forward to switching to Premera, where hopefully things will suck less and I will manage to get some bang for the buck the insurance company gets.

Related posts:

1. Taboo – American Health System
2. Getting Well: It’s About Time
3. Bills, bills, bills…

Today’s topic: American Health System

To put it short the system is as crappy as it seems viewed from outside the US. Even crappier.

Health care is a business in the US. It’s not about the patient anymore. It’s about the profits of the Health Care “Provider”. Anything and everything will be done to save every cent they can. On paper your health insurance might be great, but when you need something the story you are told is completely different.

To give an example: Lately I’ve been experiencing some ankle pain. I made an appointment to have it looked at. It took “only” 2 weeks from the moment I made the appointment until I finally got to the doctors to see it. How does that happen? Or is the “let’s schedule you in 2 weeks maybe your pain goes away until we see you” principle at work? To put this in context: I have one of the best health insurances available here. At least available for the “masses”. Hundreds of dollars flow into the health care providers pockets each month for them to take care of my health. How the heck is that possible?

To give you another absurd example: Somebody suffers an accident and needs urgent care. Hospitals have what the call “Urgent Care” or “Emergency Rooms”. Kinda like what you see in the movies, NOT. What do you think it’s the average time you spend in one of these special rooms? I’ve never heard of anyone spending less than 3-4 hours. Even heard of cases of 8+ hrs. How the hell is that urgent? I thought that if you have a problem that needs urgent attention, you’d receive urgent attention. And what do they do? Make you fill a mountain of paperwork and ask the same questions over and over again.

So, in conclusion: Health care, pfff… I don’t want to think what you go through when you don’t have insurance.

I’m not saying that the system back in Romania was perfect, but at least over there money could and would get you immediate attention. You would solve your problem and go your way. Health care in US, pfff…

Related posts:

1. Group Death Cooperative
2. Getting Well: It’s About Time
3. The Health Care Reform – A Tale of Despair

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204488304574427111102858016.html

It caught my attention because the health care here in the US totally sucks. In the first phase the doctor tries to convince you that there is nothing wrong with you (“you know all of us have back pains sometime”), after that it tries to minimize it. Taking responsability for your patient problems is out of question. Sometimes I really think that single goal of health care providers is to minimize the amount the health insurer has to pay. That’s it. They smile, explain this or that and try to make you go away. To make it clear: this whole story applies with a reasonable health insurance plan. I don’t know (and don’t want to know) the stories of those who cannot affort health insurance.

Okay, back to the article. Who from the start makes the claim that the best medicine is time. And continues with citations from some doctors who says the imune system is all we need. I cannot help but ask: what is your role if the imune system that we all have is all we need? Doooh?

The article continues to derail, going on about how you can treat yourself most of the times and you don’t really need doctors and how you should be more careful  with making the health insurance companies pay for things that you don’t need. The astronomical price of health insurance is not really the fault of those who see it as a cash cow, but it’s yours!

I find the article appaling and it does not help the cause of better health insurance even a little bit.

Related posts:

1. Taboo – American Health System
2. Group Death Cooperative
3. The Health Care Reform – A Tale of Despair