Thanks @Jim_YYC! I will keep that in mind next time I go North. 
1 Like
Without having read the article, which is dumb because it might all be in there, is this true of ALL of the ridiculous prices in a hospital bill? The $16 bandaid, the $22 sugar free jello???
I will read the article, I just can’t yet. I’m sure it’s very interesting.
Thank you for this response! I’ve only ever heard “slow”, but this actually makes it seem pretty similar to what we see here.
I actually think that piece was the most concerning of all… because there’s an implication of determination. It’s not that we can’t wait for stuff here, because certainly we can, but we also are able to have some control over the course of action. And as soon as I say that… I realize how ignorant it sounds. My family pays a lot of money for insurance which is how we find ourselves with a choice. We haven’t always had that. Regardless, I wonder what falls through the cracks when something that really needs attention fails to be identified as an emergency… I guess that was a big concern of mine, and it sounds like it might be legitimate.
That’s pretty much every appointment— scheduled or not.
So then they definitely get some things right. I’m glad to hear they took care of him so fast.
I remember you talking about that. Kind of thought you were kidding about the 3am part.
So I won’t either, but I’ll just drop in that it sounds about what we do here. And then won’t go into it.
Spent a couple of days in Canada… waited for a ferry. The ferry wait time was a very passionate topic. 
And there was a storm coming! A very exciting and scary time. 
Thanks again for the response. That was an excellent description.
2 Likes
Yes, this is exactly why everything is inflated. When you can’t figure out why someone would charge $100 for something and then accept a $3.00 payment for that bill, this is why. The Time article is a bit old, but explains all this pretty clearly.
Aaaand I still haven’t read it. But that hasn’t stopped me from walking around all day wondering why. 
3 Likes
Because you have been focused on singing the Beatles song “Lucy in the sky with diamonds”… Not much time for anything else after that… Lol
I think this happens everywhere. I saw a news story about this yesterday in a different province. - BUT is this the failure of the healthcare system or did these people have a crappy doctor who wouldn’t listen to them or an good doctor having a bad day or were the symptoms really hard for a great doctor to diagnose?
I think that a lot of the problems can be traced to the doctor or the patient but people like to blame the “system” instead of the root cause.
2 Likes
I saw that too
Nova Scotia - Canada A tear-filled plea from a woman who believes her cancer was missed for years because she didn’t have a family doctor is proof of a system “in crisis,” a Nova Scotia doctor says. The province says it’s working on it.
N.S. doctors say cancer patient’s plea shows system ‘in crisis’
1 Like
That was the one. I understand her frustration but was it the “system” to blame os is it easy for patients and doctora to blame a system… Canada looks pretty good for access to family doctors.
1 Like
They call it “boutique medicine” or “concerige medicine” here. It’s ridiculous. We lost a possibly good GP to it. He decided to go that route because he thought he’d be able to pay his staff more and thus hire better staff. The ones he had were atrocious.
2 Likes
My experience pretty much matches @Aaron’s. I’ve had appointments for doctors and procedures made in under a week if it was thought to be an emergency, or had to wait several months if it’s not an emergency. When I first got referred to my gastroenterologist, my GP wrote “increasing difficulty swallowing” on the referral. The gastroenterologist’s office saw that and immediately thought cancer. I had an appointment and a gastroscopy (endoscopy) within a week. Of course, at my first appointment the gastroenterologist was relieved to learn that this had been going on for years and was not a sudden-onset thing. We still went ahead and did the scope a couple days later.
In regards to someone missing something that’s really an emergency, I’m not sure what sort of thing you are thinking of. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I’ve read about how people in the US go to emergency instead of a GP for health problems sometimes… Here, people seem to go into the right channels more often, or at least from what I have seen as a patient. Here you can choose to go to your GP, your specialist (if applicable), a walk-in clinic, an urgent care centre (there aren’t many, but it’s more urgent than a clinic but less urgent than emergency), or go to emergency. In emergency, I’ve waited anywhere from nothing (they wouldn’t even let me sit down) to four hours (for a toe that needed stitches). Everything is covered through taxes, so I think in general, people are more willing to go to emergency, for example, if they feel something really serious is going on. I can’t count the number of posts I’ve seen in Facebook groups that say things like, “I’m having these symptoms, do you think they’re serious? I don’t have insurance so can’t go to a doctor or the ER.” Which I just find crazy (as in totally outside my realm of experience). Even if you are unemployed or homeless here you can walk into a clinic or emergency and get treatment (among many other health services, and many prescriptions dependent on province).
2 Likes
Thanks for sharing that article! It was long but very worthwhile read. It helps an outsider like me understand what’s going on in the US.
2 Likes
I’ve always thought about not having a regular doctor as the normal situation. From my point of view, a regular doctor is for old people… and diabetics 
Joking aside, our system is based on heavy electronic documentation of all the care decisions that take place instead of more personal relationships. Most younger people go for many years without seeing a doctor as long as there are no issues, but that changes with age or chronic conditions. Seeing that chart is eye-opening for me. Is it generally considered better to have a single doctor?
3 Likes
I think many people I know wind up there often because they can’t get into their GP’s office. Even worse if they’re on Medi-Cal (state provided healthcare) because there’s no clinic here. It’s a bummer.
Honestly people who’ve got the state provided healthcare or who are homeless - at least in my area - just go in and get care. It’s the people who’ve got high deductible insurance who won’t go in.
1 Like
Don’t you hate that?
Everywhere I go, the recurring question is “do you have someone to manage all of this?” Which is… do you have a primary care physician? I have my endo, and she is my coordinator, if you will, yet there are one million things she can’t help me with. For instance, when I needed a script for physical therapy, I couldn’t go to her for it. I had to go to a Pain Specialist who gave me 6 minutes to tell my story, which put so much pressure on me I forgot to ask for the script, which when I called the office back to tell them I needed one and forgot to ask, I was told to make another appointment to be assed for the need to get a script. I lay out $35 for a specialist. It can take hours to get through these appointments, and that’s anywhere from just shameless to criminal for him to insist I see him again, but that’s life in the American medical system. There are truly amazing things in it— amazing doctors, amazing tests, amazing surgeries and care… it’s all in there, but you’ve got to weed through all the criminal, shameless, shady stuff, of which there’s plenty. As far as whether I have a primary care physician, I refuse to go that route. I’m in better hands doing my own research.
And thanks, @Jen, for your detail, too. It’s really interesting and not at all what I pictured in my mind. You have it right about the treatment of the insured vs the uninsured. I remember going to the emergency room when I was 16 years old from a basketball tournament I was playing in in Texas. My sister was with me, and she had no idea what my insurance status was either. So we sat in the waiting room for four hours (I had separated my cartilage from my rib cage and was in a good deal of pain), and in the time I sat there, a young Latina woman came in who had been stabbed in the stomach. She sat next to me in the waiting room for well over an hour. While we sat side by side, an elderly woman came in, fully insured (as determined by myself from what I could gather through her check-in conversation 
), and she was ushered right back. She was being seen for her fingers… which she had closed in the car door.
I know not everyone will agree with my assessment of the system, but I’ve been down in it, and I’ve experienced what I’ve experienced, and I’ve gotten everything from amazing care from doctors who are listening and thinking to care that is just shy of criminal. If it were shy at all.
3 Likes
That’s the way I feel about it too. Even though I see the same people at the same clinic regularly, that’s still only a couple of hours per year. I don’t see how they could possibly remember my specific situation among many other patients. They do have all the written documentation, though. I think the doctors around here are really good at reading up on it before an appointment so they can give the impression that they know each patient personally. It’s actually a fairly convincing illusion
It seems crazy to me that you should have to ask a pain specialist for a prescription. Aren’t they supposed to suggest a medication and provide a script for it? It sound like they just found a problem and decided not to treat it.
I’d take that in a heartbeat. In an effort to fake it, they’d actually read—and try to remember—something about you. I’d take it. I walk into an appointment and sometimes spend the first 8 minutes ruling out diabetes as a cause. Like I actually answer questions like any history of diabetes in your family? Beyond my own I wonder?
Could be. I think they just want more money.