<p>I am in the help them figure it out when I can.
I was thinking about this recently. I have had to see multiple MDs and schedule multiple test at the imaging center. I still need to find and schedule another MD. In my area I need to see the Dr when they have an open appointment time. If I limited my availability to early AM or late afternoon I would never be able to get anything done. Luckily I am in a stage of life that I have flexiblity. A new worker would not have that.</p>
<p>"But they just started a new job, so they don’t have any time off coming to them in which to keep the appointment. "</p>
<p>I have been working for 9 different companies, both as an employee and consultant. I do not recall single instance when I was not able to go to the doctor. What is a company that has such unusual policy?</p>
<p>You do what any normal person does at a new job. Ask your co-workers who they go to and give it a try. Now there are all sorts of rating of doctors online. Many of us are in managed care and they send you a list to choose from. Most large practices have weekend and evening hours today.</p>
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<p>We have definitely had different experiences. The only job I have had where a new employee needing to go to the doctor was not a problem is my current job (where all employees are given five sick days when they walk in the door.) In all my previous jobs, you started out with zero vacation hours and zero sick hours. If you needed time off before you had accrued any (for example, for an initial visit to a new doctor in a new community), tough luck. Only in circumstances of extraordinary hardship could you get permission to take time off before you had earned it (i.e., “going into the red”), and even then, that permission could be denied. </p>
<p>Please note that I am specifically talking about the situation of NEW employees. If you don’t waste your time off, going to the doctor should not be a problem 6 months or a year down the line. I’m talking about a new employee who needs to see a doctor during the first few weeks on the job.</p>
<p>I have seen my son’s offer letter for his new job. It says that employees are explicitly forbidden from taking time off before they have earned it, and they aren’t given any time off when they start. I suspect his future company is much like the ones I have worked for in the past – where they’re strict about this sort of thing. Hopefully, he will find a doctor in his new community who has evening or weekend office hours, or the company will permit employees to make up missed time by working outside of the normal work day if they don’t yet have any earned time off to take.</p>
<p>My son just got a job for a small financial industry firm. He will have fairly generous benefits in 6 months but has zip right now. He is learning that you gotta go to work even if you are sick, unless it is a true emergency. Now he has just hit the 6 month point and has accrued one big fat sick day. He has terrible allergies this time of the year, but has been sucking it down. He could probably get a day off, but there is also the issue that if he doesn’t perform and needs too much time off, he will be out the door. He sees all of the job applications and those begging to get a job there under any condition. The doctors we have all have some Saturday and after work hour and that is what he has to do. </p>
<p>But this isn’t new to us. I schedule all appointments other than true emergency during weekends, after school or days off for my school kids. They can’t miss a lot of school. DH can take off anytime he wants really, but he doesn’t, because the job results are dependent on his being there. He, too, takes very few sick days if any, and schedules his stuff after hours. The big deal here is that he works over the 40 hour workweek and things have to be scheduled well in advance not to interfere with his work schedule. He does not just take days off though, in actuality, he can. He answers to no one about his schedule. So he is not particularly sympathetic to those in his department that need to get a tooth filled, see a doctor about an aching ankle, get a check up, has allergies and takes off the time. Yes, it could affect their performance ratings and maybe cost them their jobs. </p>
<p>If you are truly an emergency case in terms of needing medical care, you gotta take it, and in those cases, you may get docked for pay if you have not earned the time off. And sadly, if you have an ailment or situation that involves having to take off time to the point where the employer feels he’d rather have someone on site, you can lose your job. For probationary periods, often no reason is even needed. Disability laws can come into play once you have some “tenure”, but even then if the boss feels you are not around enough, you can be let go easily, just not as directly. When it comes to business, it’s business. </p>
<p>But kids who have been at high pressure schools have found that the same situation can occur if they take time off from classes. My son did not get his broken nose fixed because he broke it at a very bad time in terms of taking off time for school I would have intervened had I known, but he did not want to drop the course and retake it and felt it would be a problem to take off at that critical time. I know athletes who will put off things during a critical time of the season. One has to use judgment as to what is worth it and what is not.</p>
<p>My DH could not be with me when I miscarried some years ago. He was presenting at a large company board meeting that was not going to be rescheduled and he couldn’t hand off the presentation to anyone else. Yeah, he could have blown it off, but it would have had consequences. If I were dying, with a possibility of the last breath being taken or needed someone close handling minute to minute medical decisions, yes, he would have thrown the whole thing into the air, but given the balance and our situation, it was smarter for him to take the trip. </p>
<p>So even when you have sick days , there are times that it may not be prudent to take them. If your doctor’s appt that you have had for months turns out to fall on a day when the top corporate guys are coming to observe staff hands on, it just might not be wise to take off that day, though, yes, you are entitled to take it.</p>
<p>Zero is really not zero, you just make up for any time away. Most of proffessional people have to work overtime anyway (of course, w/o pay), appointment or not, since companies are not hiring these days, so the load is up. That is one reason they are non-hourly, you can have appointments, but you are expected to put as many hours as needed to have job done even if you job is 2 times as much as 3-4 years ago (just an example).</p>
<p>Kid, 2010 grad, is healthy. Except for required physical/shots for college, and one emergency surgery as a teenager, I don’t think S has been to a doctor in his life. Haven’t really thought of it. He does have insurance through his employer.
My advice would be: Stay well, son. (He has griped about co-workers–especially one young woman-- taking off for what appear to be the most minor ailments “I seem to have a bit of a cough. . .” then he gets their work dumped on him.)
S, 22yo, does ask my advice on various things. Why not? I’m older, have more experience, he trusts my opinion, etc.<br>
I still ask MY dad for car/home maintenance/gardening advice occasionally.</p>
<p>BTW, I do not even need to take sick days (5 / year - officially) and I do not. I understand that if you are admitted, it could be different story. But I can work from home in case I cannot really drive (as an example, for severe back pain, or being contageous with cold). For that matter, if you are not sick severely, you can work from hospital bed this days (at some places, in some positions) as long as they have wireless. My husband even works during his vacation abroad. Lots of people had their lap tops and other devices at the pool in Mexico during our last vacations, you can hear them talking “business”. You got to do what you got to do. Although my manager did not allow me to take my lap top to my D’s college graduation. Under this business conditions it is hard to imagine that doctor’s appointment is an issue.</p>
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<p>I am a dentist. I cannot tell you the amount the amount of 30 year olds I have seen over the years who have not been to the dentist since they have been on their own. They will typically tell me how their parents insisted they have braces, check ups, etc. while they were growing up and the guilt they feel for not having kept up with it.</p>
<p>So, if your child is a fully functioning, responsible adult the moment they get their diploma–great! But I’m here to tell you that most twenty somethings aren’t and many need a little (or a lot of) reminding. And the OP has a valid question.</p>
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<p>Not everyone can work from home. Consider teachers, salespeople, and even doctors and dentists themselves. Consider my husband, whose work requires a high-level security clearance and can only be done in a secure facility. Even if work can be done from home, as is the case in my job, it requires a computer and and Internet connection. I have colleagues who cannot afford those luxuries at home. And there are companies that forbid working at home because they don’t trust their employees to get anything done if they’re not being watched over.</p>
<p>^You really do not want sick teacher or doctor. In these positions more than others, I do not believe that if you need to have an apppontment, you would be denied.
When you work from home, you use you work laptop, you cannot possibly copy your work to other computer, again, for security purposes. And again, my cable is paid by my company because I am required to work from home sometime. There various situations at various positions, I just cannot imagine that person who needs appontment cannot leave his place of work. How about cases with tooth ache, severe back pain, high fever or many other conditions that will make you unproductive at the office anyway? Some of them will prevent you from coming in. We are not robots, companies know that, they have official policies and unofficial rules.</p>
<p>Marian – if it is something relatively routine or uncomplicated (allergies, flu, etc.), a lot of urgent care health clinics have evening hours. We have done this on occasion when an ER was overkill, but it was something that needed to be addressed before we could get an appt. with the regular doc.</p>
<p>There are a few in our area that are open til 9-10 pm. I know your S is living elsewhere, but that’s just to give you an idea as to some clinics’ hours.</p>
<p>Unless they are feeling very ill which hasn’t happened yet, my children don’t make time to seek medical or dental care. I have been nagging my daughter for a dental appt for 2 years and it hasn’t happened yet. Her excuse is that she is too busy at the office. In fact, just after reading your post, I sent her another email reminding her to make a dental appt. She’s been in this job and location for 2 years now and she hasn’t sought any medical or dental recommendations. I can nag her but I can’t make her do it.
If someone has a recommendation for a dentist near Summit, NJ, please PM me.</p>
<p>My son has moved to his new job/city for a year now, still no dental visits yet.</p>
<p>CountingDown: My family has used urgent care places, too, and I think they may be the optimal solution for the first few months on the job for my generally healthy daughter, whose health problems tend to be one-time things that do not call for ongoing care. But urgent care is not a good solution for my son, who has a chronic health problem for which he takes a medication that cannot be discontinued abruptly (and that he should not discontinue in any case because he needs it). He needs a primary care physician, and he will probably need a prescription for medication within a month of starting his new job.</p>
<p>cbreeze: Tell your daughter that my son delayed seeing a dentist for two years while attending graduate school. When he finally made an appointment, he discovered that he needed to have so much work done that he maxed out on his dental insurance and had to pay for about half of it out of pocket – and there isn’t much in a graduate student’s pocket.</p>
<p>One of the purposes of regular dental visits – besides better care – is that they help you spread out the expensive stuff, so that your dental insurance will pay for more of it. You do not want to have to have two expensive procedures (such as crowns or root canals) in one year; on most dental plans, you will end up paying a bundle for one of them.</p>
<p>" have been nagging my daughter for a dental appt for 2 years and it hasn’t happened yet. "</p>
<p>I myself do not go, unless I have a toothache. I have horrible teeth, you absolutely out of commision for any task in your life when you have a toothache. I have gone straight to office after implant surgeries, pulling teeth and root canals, just popping advil when it hurts. But I cannot handle toothache, no way, got to go to dentist, I am useless any way. Toothache does not last for 2 years anyway. The reason I do not go to dentist unless there is a problem, I need to save my 2 dental coverages max until the end of calendar year. Even with 2 insurances, if I have a real problem, I normally end up paying huge $$ out of pocket (one implant is about $4,000, I have 5 of them). If I need implant, the trick is to wait until the end of year (if possible) to get 2 coverages over 2 years = 4 insurance coverages and I still would pay a lot out-of pocket.</p>
<p>Part of the argument for going to the dentist regularly is that problems may be spotted while they can still be treated with relatively inexpensive procedures (for example, a filling instead of a root canal). </p>
<p>Some dental plans pay in full for preventive care visits (often twice a year) for this reason. The insurance companies know that if they can get the patient into the dental office twice a year, the overall cost of treatment will be LOWER, even though they have to cover the cost of the preventive care visit.</p>
<p>Marian- I agree. I go to the dentist twice a year. I have had little serious dental work done. Preventive care well worth the cost and time. Plus a cleaning twice a year takes very little time. The dentist is the one office I am in and out of in an hour with no wait.</p>
<p>Marian- I would suggest to your son that he look ahead to any days off he might have and try to schedule his Dr appointments ahead of time. Depending on his work he might have some odd days off that the Dr will be working. Like Veteran’s Day, good friday, many offices are open on President’s day. Also if a Dr or dentist has an early am appointment those go first.
Marian- For those with existing and ongoing medical needs you might suggest that he get a referral from his present Dr. Good specialists are sometimes hard to get into. A referral can sometimes help. Who hasn’t called a Dr and heard that the next available appointment is 4 months away or that they are not taking any new patients.</p>
<p>My DD has complained that when she asks DH & I a question, she gets two different answers. I explained that we are two different people and neither answer may be right for her, but at least she gets to consider various answers along the spectrum.</p>
<p>Hmmm, I typed the above post after the earlier posts about whether or not kids should be asking advice, must have been many posts after I opened this page and before I actually read it.</p>
<p>Just trying to share that advice is good, helicoptering not so good, but advice, even to adult kids does not necessarily = helicoptering.</p>
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<p>He can go to the urgent care after work to get a prescription. The physician there will probably advise him to have a primary care physician follow up, but at least having that prescription (with a couple of refills) will buy him more time.</p>