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“It doesn’t matter what your card says. We’re not taking patients.” Or the Joys of Obamacare, Part 320,349
Today, I finally decided I was low enough on my standard medications for my chronic illnesses that I would finally contact that new doctor I signed up for in August. It didn’t take effect until September 1st. See, I had to fire my last internist. After a (literal) 5 minute appointment with the man for my yearly evaluation, I was told that he was very busy, one of my other specialists could do my labs and investigate any further issues (that being every issue, since he did nothing). That was the extent of the appointment. After he rushed out, I was nearly in tears which does take quite a lot for me these days.
I fired him when I got home.
Today, I called the new office to make an appointment and was told that New! Improved! Not Crappy! Doctor could not see me as she was no longer taking patients. I said this had to be in error since she was still listed on the insurance website as taking patients. We’re in open enrollment, so surely this was a miscommunication. Even if she was no longer taking patients, I had her assigned as PCP in starting in September. I’m not “new” exactly, I’ve just yet to see her.
I was told after a long hold that it didn’t matter what my card said. She’s not taking patients. After a dead silence and absolute shock, I mentioned that this sucked and she murmured something resembling a non-committal sound of questionable agreement with the sentiment. I asked if any other doctors in the office were taking patients. One. One that I know for a fact has gone “boutique”, which is to say, requiring a yearly down payment prior to any appointments. That same doctor (who is excellent, I might add), is booked up through February.
I hung up, completely flattened.
I’m now on the phone with my insurance discussing complaint filing, but basically being told to just look through their catalogue and pick. I have a migraine. I’m about to run out of medicine and my only recourse since the advent of Obamacare is an urgent care or the ER. I am in tears because it is not going to get better. I finally hung up because the front staff of the Place I Wanted to Go has switched phones to voicemail over an hour early and cannot be contacted by my insurance carrier. All medical offices will be closing soon and there’s no point in picking people from a list and then calling them one by one to ensure they will take new patients (which is the only consolation my insurance has offered me). Come January 1st, my insurance goes from HMO to even crappier HMO.
I have chronic illnesses that are already impacting my life. It is hard not to embrace California’s Right to Die law while sitting here knowing that my quality of life will be stolen from me, not by the disease process; but by sheer incompetence, reduced access to timely care, and legislated medical malpractice.
Published in Healthcare
My eye surgeon, one of the best in the area, is out of network, and I knew it before scheduling surgery. So I saved every dime I could since the beginning of the year so I could pay the bill. When I got the billing I was shocked in a good way. He didn’t charge nearly as much as I expected him to do. My biggest bill wasn’t the surgeon, but the surgery center which gave me a 15% discount for paying within 30 days. It has all been paid for including new glasses and I still have a dollar or two in the bank. I am going to live to be 110 years old so expect I’ll have to pay a good doc to help keep me alive.
I love that your browser exploded my emoji.
THAT is obamacare in a graphic: a big pile o’ poo.
@max
How come when we click on alerts, it takes us to the TOP of the post page, not to the actual referred comment?
this does not happen on my iPhone, but on my padooter.
I try to avoid using any of the O-care, don’t use the part D of Medicare either, even though they make me pay for it. That big pile of poo is exactly right.
It’s supposed to go to the comment. Your browser may be stripping out the #comment-1234 part of the url, which is what take you to the comment.
Dear lord, do not ever say we’ll be thankful for that. I will never be thankful for single-payer-rationed-care o’ doom.
Oh, no. You are right. Never never thankful FOR it, just thankful we KNOW exactly what it is
?
That’s what you think. Then they pass some monster 3000 page legislation. But you have to pass it, to know what’s in it, right?
Well no. Without reading it we get to experience ???
if you don’t like the pile of ?
we give you?
Well then, tuff ?