<p>Yes, I know ridiculous. My 82-year old grandmother have been in and out the hospital in December with urinary tract infection (!). First, why did the visiting nurse insisted on her going to the hospital for something simple like that? And why did it take several overnight visits for them to actually fix the problem? </p>
<p>I think I know the answer to the first question - it is impossible to get a quick appointment for a medicare patient because of ridiculously low reimbursement rates.</p>
<p>I have to laugh at these medicare comments. Private care is so efficient? Lol</p>
<p>Last time I went to the doctor, he did not know why I was there. He had to look at my chart. He did this while I sat around and waited. The doctor did zero preparation before he saw me. The doctor did not remember my situation. I only spent 3 days and nights with the guy a year earlier. The doctor wanted me to lose weight. I lost 25 pounds. The doctor had no clue. As I was leaving the office I said to the doctor, “By the way, I lost 25 pounds”.</p>
<p>The doctor said, “Oh”. </p>
<p>I wrote this before. A friend was having chest pains. He called his cardiologist. He was told his cardiologist will see him in 3 weeks. The guy was 50.</p>
<p>dstark,
Medicare is private care. Medicare patients get the same crummy treatment you do, just an overdose of it, and sometimes they don’t even get it at all and it still shows up on the bill.</p>
<p>I hope you will not go to that doctor again. This is ridiculous. </p>
<p>I also think that some problems waiting for specialist are due to lack of doctors in that specialty. I have to wait until March 5th to check out a mole (because it started to look like something to worry about) and I am already a patient in that practice. I would have had to wait more if I was not a patient. But, there are not enough dermatologists. I hope your friend went to ER for his chest pain. </p>
<p>Anyway, these problems have nothing to do with private insurances or medicare. I think they are universal.</p>
<p>When my dad was misdiagnosed last year, the doctors did not discrimimate against him because he was on medicare. </p>
<p>It would have been cheaper if they got the diagnosis right the first time. </p>
<p>I was 48 and had an irregular heart beat. The doctor said if my heart doesn’t start beating in a regular pattern, he was going to put a pacemaker in me. </p>
<p>I said, “No f@@@@@@ way”. And I did say f…</p>
<p>I said, “Let me go home and my irregular heartbeat will normalize. You are stressing me out”.</p>
<p>After 3 days, the doctor could find nothing wrong with me. Sent me home. My heatbeat was good quickly. </p>
<p>“Anyone who has been responsible for the paperwork of an elderly (age 80+) parent can probably attest to the fact that over-treatment, over-prescribing and fraud is common with Medicare patients.”</p>
<p>I have, and do, and my wife is a hospice nurse, and, yes, Medicare is MUCH more efficient that the private system, with much lower overhead. And anyone who thinks that it is hard for Medicare patients to get into see specialists or primary docs hasn’t visited Florida. (And I’ve related the story of how Medicare got billed for, and paid for, an ambulance and resucitation efforts for my stepfather who had already been dead for two hours.)</p>
<p>lerkin–actually, UTI’s can be very serious and cause all kinds of weird things to happen. They are difficult to treat at times and often require IV antibiotics. Add in the age of the patent and a hospital stay could be very necessary.</p>
<p>There was a story in the news just within the last week that fraudulent payouts in the Medicare system were in the BILLIONS of dollars :eek:.</p>
<p>"First, why did the visiting nurse insisted on her going to the hospital for something simple like that? And why did it take several overnight visits for them to actually fix the problem? "</p>
<p>From what I heard from a nurse working at old age care home, these infections kill a lot of older people due to sepsis. Not sure why it is more prevalent among the elderly.</p>
<p>Mini- Medicare is efficient? My mom’s podiatrist got paid for two procedures which were allegedly performed AFTER she had died; after a few weeks of trying to sort it out, one of the bureaucrats actually said to me, “This isn’t coming out of your pocket- why are you working so hard to fix this?” I said, “Well it is coming out of my pocket- or at least the pockets of my fellow taxpayers, and I think it’s egregious”.</p>
<p>Turns out MANY services get billed and reimbursed for dead people- and it takes angry citizens to try and get the government paid back.</p>
<p>That’s an efficient system?</p>
<p>I have more inane stories of the alleged efficiencies but it would give me heartburn and I have a high deductible policy…</p>
<p>" I have to wait until March 5th to check out a mole (because it started to look like something to worry about) and I am already a patient in that practice."</p>
<p>JHS - you are almost entirely correct about the state of PA. college funding. However, the Governor is not trying to RESTORE any of the funding cuts that he already made. Instead, he is being hailed as a hero because he stopped seeking any MORE new cuts. He twice tried to cut all college funding by a total of 50%, and the legislature approved an average of 25% cuts (over two years).</p>
<p>“one of the bureaucrats actually said to me, “This isn’t coming out of your pocket- why are you working so hard to fix this?” I said, “Well it is coming out of my pocket- or at least the pockets of my fellow taxpayers, and I think it’s egregious”.”</p>
<p>Cheers to you, blossom, you are a rare person. May you run for office one day soon.</p>
<p>I’m on the Medicare track right now, a slight veer OT. I think Medicare as with anything can differ in quality, provisions, efficiency, depending on where you live. In my area, I can tell you that I find the process far more efficient with Medicare being the primary insurance. My MIL has had A LOT of care and it seems like those practices and places are used to using it and have the processing down pat. With other insurance plans, since these health care providers are dealing with everything under the sun, they may not get it right since they simply cannot keep track of how it works. Medicare is uniform and a lot patients are on it and there is easy access to the rules. Not so private plans like mine. I don’t get all the rules of our plan and we’ve had the same one for some years now, though each year some changes are added. </p>
<p>So yes, as Mini, said, when in a very large single payer system, it is a lot smoother more of the time for that reason Not as many surprises for the providers and they can inform us how things are to be handled, especially those who have a lot of Medicare patients.</p>
<p>I’m not beating up on doctors. I don’t think my mom’s podiatrist is a criminal- or even venal- or even lazy. Just that in a system that processes billions of dollars of claims per year there are areas where some well intentioned employees believe that it just costs too much to verify that services are going to a person who is in fact, alive, and will benefit from that service.</p>
<p>Somehow my bank manages to make sure that when I’m dinged $1 for using a competitors ATM, I did- in fact- use that ATM. And if I call all huffy to say that it wasn’t me and it was an error- it takes 5 seconds for the customer service person (probably in a call center off-shore) to take a keystroke and give me back my dollar. But when you call our beloved Medicare (whose efficiency Mini touts) to say that a doctor was erroneously paid for services NOT RENDERED, it takes weeks- and the employees of said system think you’re nuts for caring that the government paid an invalid claim.</p>
<p>I pity the doctors. Hard enough reading the thicket of regulations, let alone providing care. Bills go out- I get that- I don’t expect every physician to get the paperwork right all the time. But that’s supposedly why Medicare is so great- they match up the claims to the patients before paying, no?</p>
The doctor wanted me to lose weight. I lost 25 pounds. The doctor had no clue. As I was leaving the office I said to the doctor, “By the way, I lost 25 pounds”.</p>