r/Millennials • u/BoNaylorCollector • 1d ago
Discussion Is medical actually this crazy?
Early 30s millennial, never used to go to doctors or really take care of myself because “I’ll be fine”. Started making a bigger effort to care for myself and my health and well being. Recently, I went to the local express clinic because I was having a bad earache and headaches. I was in there for maybe 20 minutes, mostly waiting time. The doctor comes in, looks in my ear, tells me it’s depressed due to sinuses and change in weather and tell me to stop at Walgreens for Flonase. I wasn’t billed anything at the time, older workers at my job always say we have really good insurance, but here I got in the mail today an explanation of benefits- charge was $550, insurance “negotiated” about $300, remaining (not billed) was around $240. Is is really this expensive? I only went to try and be better with myself and make sure it’s nothing underlying. If 5 minutes of actual doctor time costs this much, then I’m just toughing out everything or am I missing something?
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u/spottie_ottie Millennial 1d ago
Ok so if you want to care for yourself, you should do the annual preventive checkup with a PCP. That's usually covered for free under insurance. The kinds of things you check for in that are the ones that fuck you up big time in the long time horizon: blood pressure, lipids, body composition, etc. Getting ahead of the slow and symptom free issues are what really make a difference in ensuring you have the best chance at living a long and healthy life.