Healthcare Rant

Tonight, I'd like to talk about healthcare.  No, not Obamacare or health insurance or anything of the political nature like that.  I'm here to rant about my personal experiences with doctors and health care services lately.  Fair warning, though, there may be a few things that might gross you out, so those of you out there in Reader Land who are rather squeamish might want to skip ahead to the ninth paragraph, or just skip over this post entirely. 

My story begins one evening last June, when I suddenly started feeling a slight pain in my nether regions, as if someone had hit me below the belt.  It went away after I drank a few glasses of water and got a good night's sleep, so I thought nothing more of it.  But one Saturday night late in October, the pain came back much worse.   I couldn't sit or stand without feeling like someone had put my testicles in a vice and punched me in the kidneys.  This was where I made my first mistake, in that I should have just gone to a hospital and been done with it, but it never occurred to me to do that.  But the closest hospital that I know of is half an hour away in Anderson (someone correct me if I'm wrong, for future reference), I don't have a car, and I didn't know if anyone could drive out late at night on a weekend to give me a ride.  It wasn't a life-or-death emergency, so I figured I could wait til Monday to see a doctor.  I also needed to get a new prescription for my asthma medications anyway, since the one I had with Clemson's health services had expired after I dropped out of grad school.  I did a Google search for family medical doctors in the area, and found one called AnMed Health Clemson Family Medicine - part of the larger AnMed Health system in Anderson - that was located in downtown Clemson fairly close to where I live. 

So the next Monday, I had my girlfriend drive me to the doctor's office.  Here's where I made my second mistake - had it occurred to me earlier that my girlfriend could drive me to places that were out of town, I could have looked over a wider range for a doctor that would have given me much better service, or just asked my girlfriend which doctor she and her family went to.  Back to the story.  Since I was a new patient, they wouldn't let me see a doctor right away.  Instead, they had me fill out a bunch of paperwork in which I had to list pretty much everything short of my great-grandmother's weight on the moon in kilograms.  Under "Reasons for your visit today", I clearly indicated both my reasons - the pain in my groin, and to get a prescription for my asthma meds.  You'd think that if they saw the former of the two reasons listed on the form, they'd have thought it urgent enough to let me see a doctor right away.  Nope.  Instead, the receptionist just said, "Okay, we'll call you to schedule an appointment." 

I thought, "Okay, I guess I can wait another day or two."  But a month came and went, and no phone call came from the doctor's office.  I finally called them to ask what was going on, and they told me that - you're not going to believe this - they weren't taking new patients anymore.  So I was right back where I started, until two days later, when they called me back and told me that, since one of the doctors there had decided that he actually could take another new patient, and they already had my new patient paperwork on file, they could still schedule an appointment for me.  The catch was, they were completely booked through the entire month of December, so the earliest they could fit me in was the day after New Year's.  I thought, fair enough.  I've made it this long without my meds, and the pain had only recurred once or twice, so what's another few weeks? 

So I finally saw the doctor, I went through the whole turn-your-head-and-cough routine, and he told me that I probably had a hernia, because he felt swelling in my inguinal regions.  He said I'd probably have to have surgery to fix it, but first he wanted me to get an ultrasound so we'd know for sure whether or not I actually had a hernia.  He told me they'd call me in a few days to set up an appointment for an ultrasound at AnMed's center in Anderson. 

Two weeks went by, and I didn't hear anything from the doctor's office.  It wasn't until I called them to remind them about it that they actually scheduled an appointment for me.  So I had my girlfriend drive me to this place to get my ultrasound.  I waited another two weeks for them to call back with the results.  When they didn't call, I had to call them to ask if they had the results.  The doctor said that he didn't have all the images from the ultrasound, so he'd try and track them down and call me back.  (That right there was a sign that there was something fishy about this place.)  So the next day, the doctor calls me, and says he got all the images, and that he found no signs of a hernia, but he did detect something called hydroceles, which (as I later found out from Wikipedia) are basically little sacs of accumulated fluid, around my testicles, that may or may not have contributed to the pain I had been experiencing.  He told me that they were only benign cysts, and probably wouldn't require surgery unless they started causing bigger problems, but he wanted to have another ultrasound done so make absolutely sure there wasn't a hernia.  And once again, they didn't bother calling me back to schedule an appointment, so I once again had to prod them into doing so. 

So I went in for a second ultrasound, and the next week, I got a call from the doctor's office saying that they didn't get a full scan of my inguinal region, only a scan of my testicles, so I had to go for a third ultrasound.  Seriously?  It was already awkward enough the first time getting poked and prodded in a very sensitive place with a little scanner that's covered in some icky gel that, well, does not easily wipe off, but three times?  All because some dumbass messed up the last scan!  After I got prodded and probed some more for a good fifteen minutes, they finally had to call in the head radiologist.  After taking one more look, she told me that I didn't have a hernia, and that it was probably just a pulled muscle in my groin, and the swelling that the doctor had felt was just the muscle being swollen from soreness.  The doctor called me later that afternoon, and told me that they were going to schedule an appointment with a urologist in Anderson so they could figure out for sure what was wrong with me.  When they didn't call back (are you starting to see a pattern here?) for another two weeks, I called the office to remind them that they were supposed to schedule an appointment for me. 

It's been more than a month since my last ultrasound, and I still haven't seen the urologist.  At this point, I'm not even going to bother with it.  I haven't really had any instances of severe pain down there; I just get some minor pains every once in a while, but they're not enough to really hinder me from my everyday activities.  Interestingly enough, my dad told me that his neighbor back home said his son went through somewhat the same thing that I did not too long ago - the doctor told him he had a hernia, when he had really just pulled his groin.  So basically, I went through all that trouble just for something as simple as a pulled groin. 

But that's not the end of my issues with AnMed Health.  Remember when I mentioned earlier about needing a new prescription for my asthma medications?  Well, when I went in for my initial doctor's visit back in January, the doctor told me that he would send the prescriptions in to Medco through their online system, and that I should get my meds in the mail in a week or two.  But two weeks came and went, and my meds never came.  I called the doctor to find out why there was the delay.  They said it may have been something to do with my insurance, and they'd look into it.  A few days later, I called Medco, and they told me they never received an order from the doctor.  So I called the doctor's office the next day, and the receptionist told me they'd have the doctor re-send my order.  A week later, when my meds still didn't arrive, I called back Medco, and they told me they had an order on file for me for Proventil, and that they should get the order for my Singulair in a day or two.  Okay, I thought, at least I know I'll be getting my meds pretty soon, right?  Wrong!  I called Medco last Thursday to check on the status of the order, and they told me that there was no record of the order in their system!  So I called the doctor's office and asked to speak directly with the doctor, but the receptionist told me that he was seeing a patient.  I told her that I'd called Medco and that they had no record of the prescription, and she told me that their records showed the order being sent online to Medco on February 5th.  I then called back Medco and told them about it, and they said they still couldn't find anything.  So I called the doctor's office one more time, and the receptionist said they'd call in the order again.  I called Medco one last time this afternoon to see if they got the order, and just as I suspected, they never did. 

I don't know if the problem is with the doctor or with Medco, but either way, I've just about had it up to here with not getting my meds.  This is absolute bullshit!  They're lucky that my asthma isn't really that severe, or I'd most likely be dead by now!  I've gone without my meds for about five months now.  I've never had a severe asthma attack that required me to go the emergency room; I just get wheezy and short of breath every once in a while, and I can't really do any strenuous physical activity like jogging, swimming, or biking without using my inhaler beforehand.  That's seems like a minor inconvenience at first, but remember that I don't have a car, so I have to ride my bike to get places, unless I can take the bus (which doesn't go everywhere or run all the time) or have someone else (usually my girlfriend) drive me to the places that I can't get to on foot.  Which means that: 1) I've been gaining weight from lack of exercise, and 2) I can't really apply to any jobs right now because I can't ride my bike these days (before, it was also because I thought I had a hernia when I really didn't). 

So the final score is: A misdiagnosed hernia that was most likely just a pulled groin, a $177 co-pay for the initial doctor's visit, three ultrasounds that cost $400 each (for which I haven't received any sort of bill yet), eight calls to the doctor's office and five calls to Medco that I've had to make (both of which are conservative estimates), five-plus months elapsed, zero medications received, and one very pissed-off Mike Paul, whose life has been pretty much ruined because of the negligence of one or more parties in the healthcare industry.  Let this be a warning to those of you out there in Reader Land who happen to live in the Clemson area: if you're looking for a doctor, avoid AnMed Health unless it's absolutely necessary, because from my experience with them, they do not seem to have their act together. 

I'm going to call the doctor tomorrow and see if I can get him to just write me a prescription that I can take to the local drugstore so I can actually get my meds right away.  I'm seriously considering switching to a different doctor, but I'm worried that I'll have to jump through even more hoops to get what I need.  My parents say that I should file a complaint about the doctor with the AMA or the state medical board.  I just might if this keeps up much longer.  We'll see.  Maybe I'll just move to Canada... 

Stay frosty, y'all!  B-)