So this AM I am out walking the dogs (like I do at least a couple times a day ..... the joy of apartment living). As I am walking, our doctor pulls up on his motorcycle to say 'hi and how are you'. I mention that Brennie has been feeling sick for a couple of days. As we are only a couple blocks from his office he tells me to come by. I walk on over and her gives me a couple scrips for Brennie.
ALSO: He offers to come by the apartment later in the day. I believe that this is called a "housecall". Yep a housecall! Unbelievable! I have heard that they used to have them in the US. He did come by and has just left.
COMPARE THIS WITH THE LAST TIME I SAW MY DOCTOR IN THE US: When I arrived, I gave my name at reception and was given one of those vibrating disks with flashing lights so they could buzz me when it was my turn. You know what I am talking about, they use them in some of the really busy restaurants in the states too. Then I was sent to waiting room one. When my buzzer/flasher went off, I was escorted to exam room 7 to WAIT SOME MORE. When my doctor finally arrived in his $300 shoes, he spent eight minutes with me and charged me $120. I will repeat that in case you thought it was a typo ....... 8 minutes & $120. That's about $900 an hour! (Um, we didn't have any health insurance the last three years in the states as we couldn't afford it with only my salary. So I KNOW what the medical non-care cost!)
So ........ go ahead. Ask me how I feel about the health care delivery system here in Cuenca.
Ask me.
Life is sweet,
Clarke
FYI: The word 'housecall' gets flagged by the spellchecker. Dropped from the word bank as an archaic word, possibly? Or maybe it was always two words. How would we know as it doesn't even exist as a concept any more.
I'm so old I remember my first Doctor making a house call in 1955. He charged $6 for the house call which was $1 more than his office visit. My last visit to the doctor lasted 20 minutes. I'm on Medicare and my co-payment was $20 but Medicare was billed $320. Ergo we all pay for the medical costs.
ReplyDeleteI hope Brennie makes a speedy recovery. 11 more days till we get to Cuenca but who's counting.
Yep, isn't it grand here? Our doctor asked us if we'd like to catch a couple of beers afterwards. I loved that! After 20 years in healthcare I finally had to leave. Too many meetings about how they need to get paid more with less patients. Some docs could see 80 pts. in a day (average that out!). And what they did to Medicare patients, I cannot tell (I signed a non-disclosure statement). Hope Brennie is on the mend!
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