MarkEagleUSA
C'mon Q!
Re: Rep Retirement Lodge 201: A State You Don't Expect
Good morning to tLodge!
Good morning to tLodge!

Good Afternoon Lodge!
I hate the time around Labor Day. Need a physical for work. Decided to go somewhere new because the last 2 people I saw asked me how I wanted to do my care. Last month booked an appt with a new Doc. Alrm bells should have gone off after needing to talk to Office Mgr because they said they couldn't take me because I was a pt there before and left. (I didn't) Supposed to have my PE Wednesday. Get a call a bit ago- she is going out of town they are cancelling. This appt wasn't for a PE anyway, it was meet the Provider. WHAT???Put me on hold to talk to office mgr. Nope. I can see an NP but no guarantee she will do a PE. I can ask. Oh sure. I can put the NP on the spot and hope it works but no guarantee and then it would be less than 7 days until I needed proof. Regardless of what happens no way I am staying there. Meanwhile I can't go back to my old place- once you leave you can't go back. I can go to a walk in but that is hit or miss if it will be covered and I would need to change PCP to get it done.
Left message to speak tot he mgr of the manager but no call back.
Getting a PE at this time is like panning for gold. Everyone needs a PE for school, etc. I am so screwed.
Yeah. Ran into someone at the market after I posted. Apparently this provider is nice pt pts but a beast to work for. Tons of turn over. Way too much experience with that. They are collecting 2 co-payments before you can get anything done. Hmmm. And I can't imagine what they are billing for that visit. It isn't a sick visit or a HM visit so I bet it goes to your deductible. Got in with someone we 'know'. Called the insurance member services and lit them up. Never thought I would do that. I hate when people complain but the total lack of concern for screwing me over and leaving me out to dry pi55ed me off. If they had at least apologized I would have felt better.Have not checked in here for some time but found your post. Welcome to medicine in the year 2019! never thought i would say this but very happy that we closed the office and went part time so many years ago when we saw the handwriting on the wall.
Just a leeetle jealous!Well, the bucket list is getting shorter. Just bought tickets for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
Yeah. Ran into someone at the market after I posted. Apparently this provider is nice pt pts but a beast to work for. Tons of turn over. Way too much experience with that. They are collecting 2 co-payments before you can get anything done. Hmmm. And I can't imagine what they are billing for that visit. It isn't a sick visit or a HM visit so I bet it goes to your deductible. Got in with someone we 'know'. Called the insurance member services and lit them up. Never thought I would do that. I hate when people complain but the total lack of concern for screwing me over and leaving me out to dry pi55ed me off. If they had at least apologized I would have felt better.
Just a leeetle jealous!
Good Morning, Lodge!
Took the morning off as hubby and myself went to Iron Maiden at the Xcel Energy Center. Played the classics and it was a great time.
I call myself an NP. I refuse to be called a Physician Extender or a Mid-level. Both I find objectionable and a bad message to the patients as studies show we provide excellent care and NPs can practice independently. Provider is a generic term that I find least objectionable. I would say medical professional but that is too long.I have a few doctors that I support that patients love but are absolutely impossible to work with or for. One in particular can never keep an MA for more than 9 months. MAs aren't paid particularly well and it's a pretty demanding job even working for a great doctor, so no surprise people are not lasting. On the bright side, the biggest problem user is leaving at the end of October
One thing to note - the term "provider" is used as a generic term in the same way "nurse" is at this point. I wouldn't take it personally. It's just a rough job category.
Absolutely agree with all of this!!Les-It took many years but the entire profession has been altered and i think permanently. When i first started most really cared about what they did and tried to do their best. Sure they wanted to get paid and certainly they were concerned about paying their bills and their overhead and earning a living. But that was not the entire reason for providing care. All the supervision, the control and the regulations imposed (by non medical people or by academic medical people who have never practiced in the real world) has now trickled down so that the really caring physicians and staff have either retired, cut back on practice or died. What you are seeing now is the effects of government and insurer provided services (I dare not even call it care). People in the field are no longer even called by their titles but instead are simple 'providers' and that is exactly how they have begun to see themselves and feel. In my 50 years of medicine I have simply refused to do that and I still try to be the same physician (note-not a provider) that I started out as. I can partially maintain that but only if I practice on a limited basis, provide the service i do gratis, and be thankful that Jenny and i have a life with so little overhead that we do not need to earn much of a living at this stage. you can wager that this will continue to get worse as 'providers' become the simple pawns and employees of both the government and the insurers.
This is true. I I think there is a difference between making informed choices for care and being able to shop for what you want like it is burger king. The patient should be an active participant and partner in making decisions but they aren't the managing partner. They don't have enough knowledge. We should not be a service industry where the client is always right and you have to make the client happy no matter what it takes. The insurance industry markets to the patient the nonsense about how they care and make sure the patient will get what they want and then they tell us we cannot consider what the patient really needs, only what the insurance company decrees is OK. The culture promotes the idea that this is an adversarial relationship that the medical person will be trying to screw the person out of what they are owed. They blame the Medical pro instead of the insurance that is actively working to provide as little care as possible to save $.There is a definite shift from "I am a care provider and this is my patient" - a philosophy of trusting some sort of learned expert - to "I am a patient and this is my care provider" - which I'm mixed on. Admittedly I'm new to the field and I'm definitely not a clinician, and while I think that encouraging doctor/diagnosis/medication shopping is a terrible thing, we also have the right to choose our own care, don't we?
The financial side of it is about the most confusing and opaque thing I've ever seen. I'd love to be able to price out procedures. I need a knee replacement? Let me choose my surgeon based on care, ability and cost. Sure, you can look up reviews of the surgeon and take references. But good luck looking up cost. If a hospital can even give you a procedure cost, it absolutely won't include all the other stuff that comes with it. Plus, the different cost scales based on negotiated insurance reimbursements. Or Medicare that pays 1/4 of the actual cost. Or self payers who get totally screwed.
Just a leeetle jealous!