If you like your Doctor

[C Body Bob]

You can keep your Doctor.....right...
Well not exactly. I had to fill out this form. They (insurance co) will take it under consideration & get back to me. I only filled this one out for my Uroligist since he has been treating me the last 2 years & was the one who Also performed the surgury on me. When I'm in his office he never rushes me. Answers all my questions. Gets back to me with follow up info & quickly. So we'll see what happens. I found new doctors for everything else. So I have appointments in Jan 2016 to meet them & discuss my minor issues. And yes my health insurance has gone up a ton too.

 

[cantflip]

You can keep your Doctor.....right...
Well not exactly. I had to fill out this form. They (insurance co) will take it under consideration & get back to me. I only filled this one out for my Uroligist since he has been treating me the last 2 years & was the one who Also performed the surgury on me. When I'm in his office he never rushes me. Answers all my questions. Gets back to me with follow up info & quickly. So we'll see what happens. I found new doctors for everything else. So I have appointments in Jan 2016 to meet them & discuss my minor issues. And yes my health insurance has gone up a ton too.

Hell I would settle for a doctor I liked at this point... the whole system is a disaster and its driving good doctors into "cattle call" practices
or they just don't become "network providers". All my insurance does anymore is give me the network discount until I hit my out of pocket limit...IDK how good it will be after that. I haven't spent enough $k in a year to find out.

 

[tbm3fan]

Hell I would settle for a doctor I liked at this point... the whole system is a disaster and its driving good doctors into "cattle call" practices
or they just don't become "network providers". All my insurance does anymore is give me the network discount until I hit my out of pocket limit...IDK how good it will be after that. I haven't spent enough $k in a year to find out.

Cattle call is right but medicine has been heading this way for years before Obamacare if you want to use that term. This is all insurance company driven by Blue Cross, Health Net, United Health Care, Aetna and so forth. It is a vicious circle in that insurance companies want to lower payments to doctors as their #1 means of cutting costs. That means the doctor has to see more patients per hour in order to pay all the overhead. If the office needs $1000/hour to stay open and reimbursement drops then more patients and less time is employed. Either that or the doctor stops taking the plan if the reimbursement is too low.

The second way is for doctors to try to maximize reimbursement. Hospitals are known for doing this where a one hour visit to ER can be $2000 before the attending doctor sees you. They know they are not going to get $2000 from the insurance company but they are making sure that if the company pays a max of say $800 that they get all of it. Medicare does this regionally. A comprehensive eye exam (92014) might be billed at $150. In the Bay Area that is knocked down to $122.50 and they pay 80% of it. So no one bills less than $123 around here. In Iowa the base might be only $90. This method goes only so far before either you dump the plan or see more patients.

I have dealt with this stuff since 1982 and the last 15 years things have really changed for the worse. They are vision plans I refuse to take. I will not be paid less per hour than what a plumber or auto shop gets per hour.They want me to give away my time and close up shop. Either that or see someone every 15 minutes which I refuse to do. If the patient wants a cattle call experience they can find it and maybe drive some. If they want time, expertise and personal care then they can pay me out of pocket and submit the bill for some kind of reimbursement since these exams are typically a once every two years anyway.

As such there is something for everyone now. Quick and cheap or a little more money plus more time. I just saw a patient who flew in from NYC dragging her husband with her for exams. She started with me in 1986 when she was 17 through college before moving to NYC to work with Oracle. Brother (also current patient) being here meant she could fly back to visit him and HQ so I see her and now her husband. Others stop by from Ohio, Minnesota, New England, Florida to name a few others. Normally I am off Dec. 31st but will go in for two hours to see someone who was three when I first saw her. She is now 23 and has a job in Los Angeles and has had no exam in two years. She won't go anywhere else so her Mon asked if I could see her then when up. No problem for a long time patient who is now a special patient and part of a family. Lastly, I have no issues with limiting my income in order to practice the way I want to.

 

[cantflip]

Cattle call is right but medicine has been heading this way for years before Obamacare if you want to use that term...

If only you were in FL and were a Gastroenterologist... My Optometrist is actually the only Doc I do like... married couple, I have only ever dealt with the husband... and they are longtime clients of my wife.

Several months ago I had the flu... i could tell it was going to be bad, so I managed to get out of work early and stopped by my so called Primary Care Provider at lunch time... I knew I didn't have an appointment and expected to sit a while. The office was empty while they were eating in the back. The receptionist even went back to see if they would squeeze me in... nope...go to the walk in clinic. The reason I went to that group in the first place is they advertised a "phone in" service.

I don't mind the cattle call so much... but look at the damn chart so you know who your dealing with. I had an Orthopaedic Surgeon years ago who would over crowd his waiting room, get em lined up in about a dozen exam rooms and speed his way through them all in like 20-30 minutes. BUT he looked over all the charts before he walked in and never asked a stupid question or make a statement that didn't apply to me.

I want my doctor to make money and I don't mind paying my share... it would be wonderful to find a doctor who actually made me believe they cared.

 

[Fratzog]

Reading the above makes me glad of the public OHIP coverage here in Ontario. The only insurance companies I deal with are for my home and auto insurance. Based on that experience I'd dread having my health care dependant on those gouging turds.

 

[1978 NYB]

I'm very lucky. I could get all of my health care free from the VA but since I'm retired military I have an upgrade option to Tricare Prime Plus that allows me to get all of my health care from John Hopkins Hospital for a small annual premium and a $12 office visit copay. $25 a day for any hospital stay. Prescriptions vary....generics are basically free and small fees for name brand prescriptions. I've been very happy with the care and Hopkins has been doing a great job with the combat related injuries too. I will continue getting this health care from Hopkins (Tricare Prime Plus for Life) even after I'm 65 and until I stop breathing for good.

 

[C Body Bob]

You deserve it !!! I totally %100 support our veterans.