Anomalous Data - "cough, please"

Thursday, June 15, 2006

"cough, please"

Secretary: “Hello, Blah Blah Blah Clinic, may I help you?”

Me: “Hello, I’d like to make an appointment to come in and get a lab test.”

Secretary: “Has this test been ordered by a doctor?”

Me: “This is an existing prescription. I just need a test to ensure that my meds

don't need adjusting before I can renew my prescription.”

Secretary: (Annoyed and snappish) “It still needs to be ordered by a doctor.”

Me: “Oh, sorry, that must have changed. Then I’d like to make an appointment

Please.”

Secretary: (More annoyed and snappish) “It’s always been this way. You always

need a doctor’s approval for a lab test.”

Me: (getting a little snotty) “Oh, I’m sorry, I must have been confused by the

fact that this issue has not come up before in the last six years I’ve been on

this medication.”

Secretary: (several eternities of complete silence.)

Me: “OK, so I need to make an appointment. Will you help me with that?”

Secretary: (sounding professional again) “We have an appointment with your regular

doctor tomorrow at 10:45 AM.”

Me: “That would be lovely, thank you.”

Secretary: (sounding smug, I thought) “Your REPORT TIME is 10:30 AM.”

My “Report Time?” Is she completely serious? I’m making a doctor’s appointment, not being drafted for Chrissake.

So let me get this straight; I have to make an office appointment (and pay a co-pay) for a doctor to say it's OK for me to have a blood test to say that I still need to take a medication that I've already been told I will most likely have to be on for the rest of my life? WTF? I understand that they have to do the test yearly to make sure that the dosage is correct (my condition CAN change, though it is unlikely to change for anything but the worse).

Also, the insurance companies rules have changed so that I can only buy the medication in qualtities that cost $17.50 at at time (I used to get three months worth at a time, now I can only buy it a month at a time) so I pay my $15 co-pay, and the insurance company pays a whopping $2.50? How does anyone figure this is the best medical system possible?

I just have one more question: Do they have anything you can take for the urpy, acidy feeling I get in my stomach when I have to deal with medical secretaries and red tape?

You know what? I don't believe it for a minute, but I wish Qigong COULD cure my hypothyroidism. It'd serve 'em right if meditation and a few simple exercises could put them out of business.

Thursday, June 15, 2006 7:49:31 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00) | Comments [5] | Personal

Thursday, June 15, 2006 10:42:41 PM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Why do people keep assuming the goal of medical schools/hospitals/insurance companies is to actually heal? If people get healthy, you don't make as much money. What you really want are 'customers' who only think they are sick and spend lots of money buying questionable (cheaply manufactured) chemical compounds which don't help but do little or no harm. Being chronically ill is almost unpatriotic.

I know many truly devoted caregivers, nurses, doctors, hospice volunteers. None really believe the 'system' is set up to solve the problems of the patients. Nevertheless they still try to do their best to help those placed in their care.

I can't find the study right now, but I recall reading that, although the cost/person for healthcare was highest in the US, the total heathcare system was rated fairly low in relationship to other industrialized countries. Too many lifestyle clinics, too many people receiving poor or no care due to underinsurance.

Germany didn't do much better. IIRC France was rated as being one of the best. But in France you wouldn't have talked your doctor at all, you would have gone directly to the lab and then sent the results to the doctor in the first place. Navigating the French health system is like learning to speak French without an accent, painfully trying.

Oh. And Germany. They're the ones who have officially accepted homeopathic medicines (you know, the sugar pills that have SEEN a molecule or two of some substance rumoured to help certain illnesses).

Ben

Friday, June 16, 2006 6:48:51 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Ben,

I agree that the current system is mostly a mechanism for wringing the most money possible out of the middle class. It also deosn't hurt to keep people functioning as wage-slaves, as that is the only way most people can get medical care anymore...by competeing more and more feircly for the positions that provide insurance.

I had two great grandmothers who were mid-wives. My mom said that they were the women that people called when the doctor picked up his black bag, shook his head, nad left...saying "There's nothing more I can do".

My grandmothers uses herbs and tonics and poltices and all that jazz. They were credited with saving many lives. If you think about it, someone is probably a lot more likely to heal if they are kept comfortable and kept hydrated and have someone making sure they get as much continuous nourshiment as they can handle around the clock. I'm not sure that they increased anyone's survival rate beyond the benefits of having compassionate, round the clock care...but there you have it. At least they provided that.

"Holistic medicine" tends to focus on prevention like stress reduction, elimination of potentially harmful environmental toxins, a balanced diet, regular, non-jarring, exercise (like swimming, yoga, biking, etc) and a positive, loving attitude...so while their "medicines" may be BS, they probably do their patients some good. They seem to be able to motivate their "patients" to life-style changes in ways that medical doctors cannot. (perhapse the promise of "spiritual" benefits rather than the more factual "it's going to be hard, it's going to take a long time to work, and all it's going to do is make you stop hurting)

At any rate, I got in to see the nurse practitioner, got the blood test, and as soon as I get my results, I can get my medicine.

I'm switching to buying genarics at CostCo. I'm told I can save %60 off my perscriptions there. Which I hope means I'll be paying less than $15.00 for each months supply of pills, as well as taking myself out of the inflated medicine market.

Also, my chiropractor has suggested that iodine supplements might get my thyroid working again. He has lots and lots of anecdotal evidence, and lord knows, I havn't had a migrain since I started going to him..don't know...can't hurt, can it? >;->

Kemaris

Friday, June 16, 2006 8:02:02 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

I think one of the major considerations in 'alternative medicines' is not the treatment per say but rather the time spent by the practitioner interviewing and listening to the patient.

How often have you gone to a doctor and said something was bothering you? There was the tweak here, but also that annoying twinge somewhere else. You mention the tweak and Dr. Notime says 'We'll do Test A, B and C.' And zoom, he's gone! Had he actually listened and asked, you might have also mentioned the twinge and he could have immediately changed the tests, possibly saving both time and money (and discomfort).

I think a lot of medication could be replaced with listening and palliatives. Most things will either heal themselves or doctors work only to eliminate the symptoms anyway. The really interesting part is that by emphasising ‘communicative medicine’ the money goes into the pockets of more people (doctors, nurses and health practitioners) instead of big pharma. That's why it never manages to get more publicity or lobbying. Modern medicine is great for fixing ‘mechanical’ problems. Antibiotics have done more in extending lives then just about anything else in the last century. There are great medicines out there but also a lot of those medicines are being produced and proscribed to people who don’t need them (ADD anyone?).

>Also, my chiropractor has suggested that iodine supplements might
>get my thyroid working again. He has lots and lots of anecdotal evidence,
>and lord knows, I havn't had a migrain since I started going to him.

Well, Negatives don't prove much. I'm reading a GREAT (text)book by Thomas Gilovich called "How We Know What Isn't So." It goes into the very human methods for seeing patterns in just about anything. Talking about why all people believe strange things. Very smart people have very weird belief systems. If I get around to it, I'll either scan or recreate a couple of graphs from the book and send them to you. What you see isn’t necessarily what really is.

One really interesting theme is that the best people to defend ‘iffy’ theories are the really smart people. Once a smart person believes something weird (like -- um -- in chiropractors), it takes much more data to convince them they are wrong. Smart people can come up with lots of alternate theories as to why the ‘negative data’ either doesn’t apply or they adapt the weird theory to include the negative stuff. Finally, if all else fails, the data is simply ignored. (And yes, I am often guilty of these things.)

Ben

Friday, June 16, 2006 8:40:38 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

Ben,

You DID see the winking devil-smiley I used at the end of my last paragraph, right? :-)

I do like it when my chiropractor puts my bones back in place (and when he puts my bicept tendon back in the little groove it's supposed to be in when it snaps out)...but I don't for a minute think that it's going to make my spleen healthier. :-)

I get beat up a lot in the sports I do, and I DO throw my back out, and the chirpractor DOES put it back in place, and I DO take less pain medication because of it.

The fact that I stopped having migrains since seeing the chiropractor doesn't prove that he cured them. I don't care. I have had an entire perscription of Torridol AND Imitrix expire unused. For me, whatever the reason; Happy me. Don't tell me it's a placebo, it'll stop working then. :-)

Trees

Kemaris

Friday, June 16, 2006 9:03:30 AM (Central Standard Time, UTC-06:00)

I very and truly believe placebos DO work. Just because some medicines sometimes do a litte 'more'. I am more a skeptics skeptic. Just because I don't believe what the witch doctors and quacks want me to; doesn't mean I much want to live in a world devoid of magic and wonder. I choose to believe all, and nothing.

BTW, there IS a placebo effect. It is measurable, it works and that's the way it should be!

>... I DO throw my back out, and the chiropractor
>DOES put it back in place, ...
And that satisfying 'Crrraaacck'. Ahhh!

Oh, and don't you hate the flimmering just before you get the migraine? I hate that.

Well I'm off to homemade pizza and a private screening of "Better Off Dead". The DVD just came in a package from Amazon. My weekend is MADE.

Ben

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