Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Editor's Note
Went to get my blood work this morning. Took far longer than usual (had to wait 4 hours). The joys of being in a public health system. Blogging will return in the next 30 minutes. Military and Intelligence News Briefs and World News Briefs will be posted at 16:00 EST and 17:00 EST respectively.
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4 comments:
Here are a couple of things that happened to me when accessing our healthcare system.
I have always been early for everything and anything. It is a life time work habit. I see my doctor every three months. The appointment is usually at 10 AM. They start the visits at 9. I'm there at 8 for the 10 o'clock appointment. I am usually out by 8:30 and that is after 10 mins of joking with my doctor.
Last year, early June, he gave me a requisition for an imaging thing for my kidney. He must have indicated a low priority because when the young lady (in the same building) told me my appointment would be for the end of August, I replied, softly of course, "I'll try to survive until then." at which time she changed the appointment to Thursday, two days away.
A couple of years ago, after a hearing test I was advised that I needed a CAT scan that it wouldn't be for three months. After a week I hadn't been advised of the appointment date/time so I called the clinic. The young lady advised me again it would take three months but I said I just want to know the appointment details. She called me back 10 mins later and said, tomorrow night at 7:15 in the Barrie Hospital. I arrived for the appointment at 5:45. The receptionist commented that I was early and told me to have a seat. There was nobody else in the waiting room. Five mins later I was in the back room having the CATS and I was out by 6:15.
My girl friend, now 77 had an exploded disc and needed an operation. She was immobile and had to go by ambulance to emergency. Her doctor was actually on the hospital board of directors. She was told by him after the scans and tests that it would be three months before she would have the operation. (three months seems to be a key deterrent for old people like maybe they won't be around later) I told her to tell her doctor that she couldn't deal with that delay and could/would afford to go to the States for the operation. Miraculously they were able to perform the operation, at another hospital, two days later.
Conclusions
1. I am 72 therefore a low priority. The healthcare system is geared to ensure higher priority folk get more timely treatment but that doesn't mean all the appointment times up to three months are filled in. They put low priority people way out there in time to ensure there is lots of space for priority people.
2. The hospital imaging department works 7/24 and space out appointments for non priority people because they can get high priority and emergency type jobs at any time. There is lots of time available.
3. Billings drive the business and how people are scheduled. There are limits to what Doctors, testing facilities and even hospitals can bill so they spread out the
workload where they can and low priority seniors help them out in that respect.
4. Because of caps there is a point where healthcare facilities work for nothing. I know from a friend that a major company that processes tests, like your blood test, hit their cap around the end of October so they don't get paid for two months work.
5. The healthcare system works around the financial restrictions placed on them and it is the low priority people who provide that workaround capability. You have to just push, gently, politely, at the right level and always show up very early. It is most likely that people won't show up or be late, then the reverse.
Bob Huntley.
Barrie hospital .... so I presume you live in Ontario.
A very good friend of mine works as an anesthesiologist in Cornwall (Ontario). She use to work in a Montreal hospital, but took the position in Cornwall because they doubled her pay and cut her working hours. As she told me a few months, the Quebec and Ontario health system are complete opposites, and it is one of the reasons why she decided to move with all of her qualifications and experience to Ontario. In my case .... Quebec's health care system .... especially when it comes to taking of our seniors like my mom .... is frustrating to say the least. The wait times are ridiculous. So take it from me .... consider yourself lucky.
This is why I am always skeptical of those who preach how great Canada's medical system is. Maybe it is great in your part of the country .... but here .... OMG!!!! Ditto for those who believe single-payer is the utopia that the U.S. should pursue .... they should sit in the emergency room of any major Montreal hospital, and see how the system works first hand.
As to the system that I like. Russia and France permit both a private and public health care system. If you want to pay extra for your health care .... you should be entitled to that right. After-all .... we do the same for education .... private and public schools.
Interesting.
From an experience my daughter's friend who moved to Quebec had you can hit the Francois wall even as your life is ebbing away.
If you are looking for an investment opportunity and hear that the cap is lifted off the test processing industry, buy shares. They already have the business in hand.
Bob,
Quebec's health system is the poster child (for me) on why socialized medicine and health care does not work.
The business of testing and diagnostics is the industry that my brother is in now. He rights the protocols for FDA approvals on these procedures.
He even refused a job offer from Elizabeth Holmes to work with her at Theranos (a blood testing company). He called her and her tech a fraud, and told me to short her company (I did not). She then tried to back-ball him in the industry, and almost succeeded. The rest is history .... her tech has been proven to be a fraud, and she is now facing multiple lawsuits and legal challenges. AS for stock opportunities .... my brother told me this summer that there is nothing good out there for an investor to be interested in.
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