.....at least half of the middle class people don’t go to Dr visits anymore because it costs them too much ( a direct result of Obamacare which shifted to cost of indigent care away from the already non taxpaying hospitals and the insurance companies to the middle class) while the poor choose the ER’s because it’s one stop shopping and they aren’t paying for it. No waiting for appointments, see a Dr & get tests at same time, consults from specialists at time of visit also, sent home with meds from prescriptions filled at hospital pharmacy before leaving, all at a schedule of their choosing so that they can not be inconvenienced. (Obamacare requires hospitals and particularly ER’s to meet patient satisfaction survey levels in order to be fully reimbursed, that’s why you always get those emails asking about your visit after the fact, and many of the patients who pay nothing have quickly picked up on it and are often the most demanding of patients). Trust me, they all know it too.
Btw, hospitals and doctors with high ratings - esp in ER are the ones who give the patients what they want, so what kind of doctors and ER’s do you think that encourages?
And also, the big hospital system makes it hard to get in to be seen with impossible phone trees, plus too few Drs cuz they left the field rather than put up with the new administrative and EMR BS regulations thatnow let them only see 1/2 of the people they used to see.
I predicted you’d someday bitch about the system you facilitated with Obamacare while being unable to see that you d it. I was right. It encouraged all of the worst aspects of the system.
Why go to an office visit to see some nurse practitioner that can’t really help with anything you can’t alreadygoogle, and who orders a bunch of expensive tests because of it as well as a consult thereafter with the real doctor?
As a patient, it scares me. I know people because of my job, but people like you who aren’t so lucky are going to pay the price. You may be temporarily protected by a sweet work policy, but those are in the process of changing as well as I’m guessing you’ve noticed.