- When I moved from Franklin Massachusetts to the Cape, it took six months for me to find a health care provider accepting new patients and facilitate the transfer of my medical records.
- When I moved from Franklin Massachusetts to the Cape, it took five minutes for me to find a veterinarian accepting new patients and facilitate the transfer of my dog’s medical records.
- At the end of many Big Pharma ads, the company spokesperson adds, “If you can’t afford this medication, our company may be able to help”. I wish they would just tell the truth and say “If you can’t afford this medication, it’s because you live in the USA. Anywhere else, it’s not a problem.”
- When I hear of a prominent Covid denier has become infected and has died, I’m reminded of Mike Hughes, a flat earther who was killed in a rocket launch in one of his homemade rockets- part of his plan to be able to determine for himself if Earth was as flat as he proclaimed to believe.
- Can we please dispense with the recorded messaged of “Your call is important to us”, “This call may be recorded for training purposes”, “If this is an emergency please dial 911”, and “Did you know you can find us on the Web?”. If the call was important we would not be on hold. We don’t care why the call may be recorded. We’re not idiots. We know about the Internet and 911.
- I wear a mask for two reasons. The first is that even though I am vaccinated, I know it will help slow the spread of the virus. The second is I do not want to look like a Trump supporter.
Please share widely!
Just to build on your first bullet — getting a PCP is just the first step.
In today’s utterly dysfunctional health-care system, virtually every significant disorder requires a specialist or sub-specialist. The PCP — if your plan even has one — is little more than a traffic director.
There are enormous differences between groups (such as MGH or Atrius) in how effective a PCP is in recommending a specialist or subspecialist who is taking patients and who is in-network. If your insurance provider is BCBS and/or Medicare, then you’ll have an easier time finding an in-network provider.
Here are some other health-care related bullets I invite you to add:
None of which is read by anybody anywhere.
This forced repetition of the same questions over and over is a staple of harsh interrogation techniques practiced during the cold war.
Even as we speak, mainstream news outlets report that large numbers of federal health-care providers are being moved to the regions of the south devastated by a pandemic among non-vaccinated seditionists. This is absurd — and reflects how badly broken our entire health-care system is.
While I was in high school at the height of the Vietnam war, my friends and I reacted to similar forms and questionnaires collected by school authorities by providing random and farcical answers. So far as I know, nobody ever saw or reacted to any of those.
Perhaps it’s time to start doing the same with these medical forms.