Care

I rarely talk about anything political or even close to political. Mainly because I have no interest in any of it nor do I really understand most of it.

I have ranted about health care before and I am going to again.

I admit Michael and I were spoiled by the physician who cared for us for many years when we lived in Colorado. Note I used the word care. Care is what we received from him and his entire staff. During this time we were both in the medical field. We spent a lot of time researching physicians in our area. We wanted a person–another important, deliberate word choice–we could talk with openly and ask questions when there were things we did not understand. We wanted to be part of our own care and depended on him and his staff to give us the guidance we needed to make good and wise choices. We saw this as a long-term relationship–someone who would be in our lives as we aged. Continuance of care was very important to us.

You can see where this is headed. The combination of Obama Care and retirement certainly changed the entire medical world for us and many others.  We have been retired for two years and will be seeing our third physician next week. So much for continuance of care.

I have learned that you MUST keep your own records and do so in great detail. Now that medical information is kept digitally things do not always transfer well. When we sold our house, I shredded a lot of my own records because I knew I could always go on-line and get that information whenever I needed it–all my labs, imaging studies, and office visits were at my finger tips. Well…assuming takes it one more time: Assuming: 276+, Barb: 0.

I did not think we would ever need to change physicians. Even with moving, we both thought we would continue to see him as our primary provider. As time went on it was obvious that this was not practical. And our doctor made a change of his own by becoming VIP provider–a type of boutique practice. Change…often unexpected and usually difficult.

I’ll see next week if our records get transferred to our new provider. I am not sure my records ever made it to the last physician I saw–who billed me for two office visits and never had any of my history in order to really evaluate me or my latest labs. I was very unhappy about that and other things.

The light bulb went on yesterday and I called to get my own copy of my records. The best part of that whole task was that I could call our old office where I knew they would follow through with what I was asking of them. I could trust them to do what I needed to have done. In addition to that I learned something from her. She told me that they transfer all records by CD and many times the CDs get misplaced or discarded because offices expect printed records to arrive via fax or mail. That explains a lot.

 

I know I have been ignoring myself. I know that healthcare is important. I know better than to compromise. I’d felt like I had not been getting good care for a long time–it was past time to do something. I need to take my power back and find the way to get good care in spite of the insane obstacles.

As I type I am wondering how different this would all be if we, the citizens of this great United States of America, had the same health coverage that our representatives had and will have for life?

How is it that they have better coverage than those who fight for us, keeping us safe and our freedoms intact?

I am so baffled. Not only because I don’t understand how it has happened but because I cannot figure out how to fix it?

How is it that we have this amazing country filled with so many smart people but we allow this and so many other insane inequalities to continue on, day in, day out, year after year after year?

Isn’t this a working example of insanity?

I am…

B…simply being…

I love you all. Peace.