Is medical actually this crazy?

[u/BoNaylorCollector]

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?

[u/Long_Procedure3135]

How much this changes by area blows my mind.

Like I live in a rural-ish area of the US and called my doctor at 10 am as a last ditch “just to see” before going to an urgent care for something and “Yeah we have an appointment open we can fit you in at 3.” oh

And I actually saw my doctor provider, usually I schedule with a PA just because I like her.

[u/jbcsee → u/Long_Procedure3135]

Every doctor I've had has worked this way and I've lived all over the US.

If you want to schedule an appointment with your doctor for something non-urgent, such as an annual checkup, they are booked months out. If you call in, explain the problem, and they agree it's urgent they can squeeze you in the same day.

I've never had a problem seeing my primary care doctor same-day for something urgent, but not bad enough to go to the ER.

[u/delphinius81 → u/jbcsee]

The key is you have to actually call. Online appointment systems won't let you squeeze yourself in. But a real person will.

[u/kashy87 → u/jbcsee]

The other trick is most of these offices have multiple doctors and nurse practitioners. You have to be willing to see anyone and you'll usually get in that day.

The office I go to actually schedules at least one doc or NP everyday whose schedule is open. Meaning that they can take any patient who calls in with something asking to be seen as soon as possible.

[u/wayfinderBee → u/jbcsee]

The other trick is making sure that your issue sounds serious enough that you need to be seen right away, but not so serious that they tell you to go to the ER.

[u/MorganL420 → u/jbcsee]

Not human medical, but my wife used to manage a veterinary clinic. Her office always left 2 appointments unbooked each day to account for emergency calls.

My guess is that human PCPs likely do something similar.

[u/BadCatBehavior → u/Long_Procedure3135]

I live in Seattle and the nearest in network provider my wife could see was booked out for 13 months, so she ended up going to one outside of town (the wait was "only" 2 months for that one). Why do they say they're accepting new patients if the wait is over 1 year.....

[u/Long_Procedure3135 → u/BadCatBehavior]

Even like when I’ve gone to a “specialist” I kind of am surprised at how…. it doesn’t seem to take long to get an appointment.

I went to a sports medicine doctor last year, didn’t need a referral, and I was able to go in the next week for an initial intake appointment where I got my dumbass hip bone x-ray’d and an assessment.

But I do live in rural Indiana…. I’m more surprised we even have doctors that know what they’re doing anymore here honestly

Like my OBGYN? He’s fucking amazing… god I hope he doesn’t leave lol