Category: Health

Friday I had an appointment with my new primary care physician. We’ve wanted to switch doctors for awhile but the one we’ve had for well over a decade had convenient hours and always accepted our insurance. Until last year when Blue Cross Blue Shield dropped her. When I called her office and spoke to her husband, the office manager, he explained it was because she wasn’t board certified but according to him that wasn’t necessary back when she started her practice. I don’t know whether or not that is true, but we chose a new primary care from a list of names but never actually saw her because Joe got a job and we switched insurance companies again.

Now we have Aetna, and while I’m pretty sure our old primary care is in their system, I felt it was a perfect excuse to leave without her knowing it’s because we’re tired of dealing with her husband. He’s technically friendly but comes off pretty gruff, particularly over the phone. I always feel like he’s trying to rush me off the phone which really sucked the last two times he screwed up and caused me insurance headaches. Those mistakes alone were enough to prompt my desire to leave, but his attitude (aka assigning blame to everyone but himself) really cemented it.

My friend had told me about how much she loved her primary care and it turns out he’s covered by our new insurance so a couple of weeks ago I scheduled an appointment. Not only is his office less than ten minutes away (opposed to 20+ since our old doctor was closer to where we used to live before we got the townhome), but the building is new and modern. Everyone there is super nice and friendly too.

I gave Dr. Nick, as I’m going to call him, a typed-up document going over my current health concerns along with a list of on-going issues, conditions I’ve been diagnosed with, conditions that have been ruled out via testing, the vitamins I take, etc. He really took it all in and put together a plan of action moving forward. This is in stark contrast to former doctor who would just keep sending me to specialists. I could tell after our first meeting that Dr. Nick not only cares about me but is very intelligent too. Everything he said made perfect sense. I really really like him and am hopeful that some of the crap I’ve been dealing with for years without answers might actually be addressed at last.

Even better? Since it was our first visit it was coded as an annual exam and I didn’t have to pay a cent. Woo!

Now I just need to get my old records from former doctor and it’s goodbye forever!

As I wrote earlier, I went for a routine mammogram in early September. Well, a few weeks later I received a letter from the radiology center stating there were changes between my recent mammogram and the previous one that required additional testing.

I went in on Friday to have that second mammogram done. Unlike the first visit, I ended up waiting a half hour past my appointment time which was a bit annoying. When Janet (the woman doing my test) came to the waiting room to call my name she was calling a name no one recognized. I later learned it was my primary care doctor’s name (although she was mispronouncing it and it’s not a difficult name to say). This woman wasn’t necessarily unfriendly, but she wasn’t warm and caring like the woman who did my mammogram last month.

Not only that, but after she smashed my left breast twice (as required to get the necessary angles), she went back to her computer to digitally send the scans to the doctor and couldn’t locate them – the scans she literally just took thirty seconds ago. She also couldn’t find my name in the system because someone (I’m guessing her, since she kept saying “I know I put your name in here”) entered my doctor’s name as the patient! I don’t even know why my primary care physician’s name was even in there since it was my gynecologist who ordered the initial mammogram. She then proceeded to edit the name on the record even though from my vantage point it was so clearly not an editable field because it was grayed out. She just kept pounding on the delete key in the non-editable field like that was going to fix everything.

Then she told me she would have to do the mammogram again – no apology or anything, just matter of fact like it was no big deal that I was going to have to go through more pain and discomfort a second time. By the time she was done my breast was very tender/sore. She went back to the computer again and started remarking how she couldn’t find my name/scans, blaming the computer (sure, it’s the computer’s fault) and I almost lost it. Luckily after some digging she located them and sent them off to the radiologist because I wasn’t about to have her do my mammogram a third time without someone else present to oversee her. I was prepared to refuse until a manager was present in the room; I’m dead serious.

After she sent the results she asked me to sit tight while the doctor reviewed them, and she left the room. After about a five minute wait she came back to let me know they would also need to do an ultrasound and instructed me to grab my things and lead me into an internal waiting room. So there I am in a gown that is untied and opens in the front trying to juggle my purse, clothes (while attempting to bury my bra underneath my shirt), and this cup of breast cancer awareness swag she insisted I grab as well. I then had to sit in a room next to a fully clothed woman and wait another couple of minutes. It was humiliating, not to mention I was upset that there might be something seriously wrong since the second mammogram had still left questions.

Finally I was led into the ultrasound room and that technician (I didn’t catch her name since at this point I was upset and in pain) was much more personable. Unfortunately the nature of an ultrasound requires you to lay still on a table while the technician keeps pressing and pressing into your tissue to get the scans needed. Due to having my breast smashed two more times than should have been necessary it was already sore so this didn’t help. Plus it felt like she kept scanning the same spot over and over which was seriously beginning to concern me since I figured she had spotted something. By the end of it I was holding back tears from pain and fear. The doctor came in right away and looked at the scans and told me it was nothing – just a couple of small cysts which are difficult to spot due to how dense my breast tissue happens to be. I was immediately relieved, but holy crap what a stressful experience!

I hope by this time next year we’re on better insurance so I can go back to the hospital to have my annual mammogram. I thought I liked this place better until having to go through this ordeal.

On top of that, I have zero idea how much all this is going to cost me. I called my insurance company earlier in the week to get an idea and was basically told it depends on how the facility bills it and what their contracted rate with the insurance is yet the woman couldn’t access that information to tell me the specifics. She suggested I call the center but at that point I figured what does it matter? I need to have it done regardless and have no other options so it is what it is. Incidentally, based on the few details she was able to share, the mammogram costs more than the ultrasound, so why didn’t they just do an ultrasound to begin with and skip the mammogram? Oh, I know – because they get more money that way, right?

The health care industry is so messed up. There’s no other situation where you’d have services done and then learn what you owe after the fact. No wonder 50% of bankruptcies are due to medical bills. And don’t even get me started on the costs of procedures in this country compared to other just as progressive countries. It’s disgusting how much the good ole U.S. is so money focused. Honestly, that’s all anyone cares about. Your safety is only taken into consideration in terms of cost. If it will cost a corporation less money to risk inflicting harm or even death than it would to make something safer you better damn well bet that your life will be on the line. Case in point: the only reason flying is so much safer nowadays isn’t because the airlines give a shit about your safety – they just don’t want to lose business by killing their customers. And even more so, they don’t want to lose a multi-million dollar aircraft. That’s their major concern. Sad, but true.