Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Health care in this county is ridiculous
I woke up yesterday morning with an eye infection. My right eye is red and very itchy. I called my doctor’s office to make an appointment. He’s all booked up this week. Same with the PA (physicians assistant) he has in the office. She too is all booked up. I asked if he could then call my pharmacy with a prescription for some eye drops. The woman I spoke to said she would have to ask and that she would get back with me.
I tried calling again today. I explained my predicament and that I needed a prescription for antibiotic eye drops. After telling them my date of birth, I was placed on hold. After 6 minutes, I hung up.
Why do they constantly ask my date of birth? Don’t they have it somewhere in my file? I’m always afraid I’m going to get it wrong.
Health care in this county is ridiculous. If you get sick and need to be seen by a physician, you pretty much have to just go to the emergency room. If you try to actually go to your doctor, you will have to compete with all the people that want the latest cholesterol drug advertised on the evening news. They all made appointments weeks ago. Want to lower your cholesterol?
Stop eating fried animals.
I don’t even really need to see a physician. I just need some eye drops. Being that we Americans are not trusted with purchasing antibiotic eye drops on our own, we have to go through a doctor and get his or her permission. It’s a stupid system. Why can’t I just buy antibiotic eye drops? Is there some weird recreational use for the stuff that I’m not aware of? I can buy antibiotic soap. Why not antibiotic eye drops?
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Try squirting that soap in your eye. It can’t get worse than it already is, can it?
Do they sell a no-tears version? It can always get worse. As far as eye infections go, this isn’t the worse one I’ve ever had.
That sucks. I’ve had it bad enough before that it glued my eye shut. Hope it gets better. If not, you can always try getting a bionic eye. They seemed to work pretty well for Steve Austin.
I had that once! I woke up and my eye was stuck shut. That’s why I say this one isn’t as bad. I can open my eye. It’s just real red and itchy. I just don’t understand why I can’t go to a pharmacy and just buy eye drops. Its not like it can be abused for recreational purposes. It’s not like you can overdose on it.
Some idiot kid somewhere probably drowned himself with a case of it and caused a lawsuit or something. So when normal people now need it, we can’t get it without jumping through every fucking pharmaceutical and legal hoop there is.
I’m pissed because I can’t get good OTC allergy shit anymore because of all the fucking tweakers who use it to make meth. Thanks a lot, assholes.
The date of birth is actually helpful. At my old doc’s office in WV, they had 3 women with the same first and last names as mine. One was 70 yrs old, had uncontrolled diabetes, and was dying of something, and when he saw me, my doc actually had her file during one appointment! That was interesting…………………….When I got divorced and changed my name to my birth name, I was THE ONLY person in WV with that last name at all, so things got easier. The bureau of child support even like the situation better.
This is a capitalistic nation, and the drug companies are an huge lobby, so any opportunity to overcharge and make more money is granted them. I suggest you keep any antibiotic eye drops you don’t use this time just in case there is a next time. They do expire, but not immediately.
I’m in the same boat that RonAndrewSchooly is in. Now if I want allergy medicine that works I have to go back through my doctor, who of course is going to charge me a copay in addition to the cost of the meds. The non-perscription stuff they make now might as well be sugar pills for all the good they do.
Schooly & Cayusa, I thought they still sell that stuff used to make meth, but now you have to ask for it. You can’t buy 25 boxes of like you used to.
siriunsun, I’m the only one of my clan living on this side of the Mississippi. I *think* they are using my date of birth as some sort of identification authentication. As if knowing my date of birth is some sort proof that I am who I say I am. It’s dumb.
I really hate the level of advertising used in the health care field. It’s disgusting. My old doctor had a TV in the waiting room playing the same CNN
commercialhealth program on a loop. It was that doctor Sanjay Gupta pimping one product after another.When Sheri had her wisdom teeth extracted, she had an oral surgeon do it. There was not one single piece of medical advertising in the place. Not in the waiting room, not at the desk, and not in the individual rooms. It was startling not so see it. There was actual art on the walls and not promotional posters.
When those laws were passed about the OTC allergy meds, a lot of the companies re-formulated their products. So some of the same stuff is out there but behind the counter- but not the one I used to use. Or at least not in New Jersey.
And I can’t even get in to see my doctor to get new allergy meds. She works M,T,TH,F, 8am to 2pm. So I’d have to take time off work to fucking go in. She’s fat and smokes, anyway. How fucking good of a doctor can she possibly be?
Come on, bent. Not all of use that need help controlling our cholesterol are in that situation due to KFC trips. Some of us are screwed by genetics!
Good luck with the bum eyeball.
Thanks SMan, you are of course correct about the cholesterol thing. It isn’t always diet. I was only venting. My doctor’s office called me today and asked me where I wanted my eye drop prescription called into. The woman I spoke to on the phone said that they had been trying to get a hold of me. Huh?
Give my regards to the folks at the Herald-Mail Forums. I only have 358 days to go until my suspension if over! Yeeha!