\r\n \r\n The healthcare system is over-regulated and it needs to to be blown up with kerosene!!!!! I am P.Oed enough with how they treat my grandma at her hospital! Grrrrrrr One time they refused to admit her because she has advanced dementia and she would "die soon anyway"! This was back in March and she\'s still alive. If she wasn\'t admitted that day, she would have died because she just had a minor stroke and she wasn\'t able to drink. She needed IV fluids and the hospital refused to keep her over night. My mom finally fought enough so that they did keep her, but she had to scream at them to do so. I know how dementia works and many people recover from small strokes in a month or two. My grandma can do everything she did before the stroke now.
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\nWhat the f***! Seriously! I don\'t care how old you are, what condition you are in or any of that s***! You are still a human being and you deserve the same care as anyone else!
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\nIf I was there that day at the hospital, I would have gone to jail that night...I wouldn\'t have left there without socking the doctor one in the jaw...I wouldn\'t have been able to control myself. I\'m glad I had to work that night!\r\n

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\r\n \r\n I agree that all people should have good care but..... this doctor\'s hands are tied by the medicare system. Hitting him in the face would have been a worthless act of violence and If I were him I would have had you arrested for assault if it came to that. I have called the police to remove family members more than once in my health career. Doctors face hateful and angry people every week. They don\'t need this kind of crap.
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\nMost likely the hospital ended up footing her bill, unless the doctor lied on the documentation. 50 percent of the hospitals in the USA operate in the red continually, year after year due to bills that they end up paying out of their own pocket becasue medicare won\'t, the family won\'t or can\'t and the doctor and the staff take the brunt of meaness, anger and resentment becasue they are the face of the institution and the whole governmental medical system, whether they like it or not.... they are just people like you and me and if they or their family members had the same problem they would have faced the same dilemma.\r\n

\r\n __________________
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\r\n \r\n Whoa I never knew you posted this until now...
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\nI never said that I actually wanted to hit the doctor. I was just saying that I know how my anger is and that I probably would have done it if I had been there. When I am in the face of defending a defenseless loved one, I tend to get violent. It is something I am able to control on an average day. Heck, I wouldn\'t want to go to jail! But just because I wouldn\'t do it when I\'m not heated doesn\'t mean that I feel the doctor didn\'t deserve it. In other words, I definitely feel that he needed to be smacked just to be shown that he is seriously wrong...but I really woudn\'t want to smack him because I wouldn\'t want the consequences.
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\nDon\'t forget, he assaulted my grandmother by not wanting to care for her...\r\n

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\r\n \r\n Chatterbox, your friend needs to go back to the doctor. Since she is no longer in a life threatening position she will be able to get assistance from medicare through the doctors office. They have very stringent guidlines about hospitalization. If she wishes to continue with conventional care the doctor should be able to help her though the office and medicare will pay... of course I do hope she has a medicare supplement policy.
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\nThat being said, she would do much better for her health finding a natuopathic doctor and footing the bill herself.\r\n

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\r\n \r\n TRUE Naturopaths are basically doctors, they take the same basic science courses, but the mode of treatment is drastically different. A True naturopath will be able to help, but the issue is the true ones can only practice in 11 states. Out east it is CT, and out west I know WA, I do not know the others, but the ND schools are in washington state. One of them is Bastyr College. You might want to call theschool and see what states their grads practice in.\r\n

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\r\n \r\n Chatterbox, I didn\'t pick up on the fact that her fever had returned... in this case she should return to the hospital.. medicare should approve.
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\nDid she not receive oral antibiotics to take home with her?
\nShe really really needs to implement a program to restore probiotic microbes in her gut also. \r\n

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\r\n \r\n Chatterbox! Here you go:
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\nhttps://www.bastyr.edu/contact/referral.asp\r\n

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\r\n \r\n I think Naturopaths are legal in 13 states now but they cannot prescribe drugs in all 13 even though they are trained to do so.
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\nChiroprators can do IV nutrients in 3 stats, Idaho, New Mexico and Oklahoma.\r\n

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\r\n \r\n The Moral of this story is - If you are Elderly, do NOT get sick enough to have to go to a hospital!
\nGod only knows how much worse it\'s going to get with Medicare in the future.
\nIt\'s the end of another year so a new Medicare reimbursement begins in January 2011.
\nI have a foot doctor\'s appt today - trying to get them all in before end of 2010 & they\'re covered. \r\n

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\r\n \r\n Before my dad got sick, I was in the process of getting ready to do the mid life crisis thing: CASH IN SOME STOCKS AND BE A BUM IN CENTRAL AMERICA FOR A YR AND TRY TO GET SOME TEACHING IN DOWN THERE. But things changed. I was on a site called costa rica living and they had some interesting comments on medical care down there:
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\n1) Not expensive (compared to the US).
\n2) No abuse like here. If you go to an emergency room with a cold or flu, they tell you to **** off.
\n3) If you are an american, you basically buy insurance to cover 20-30k worth of expenses. If you are a costa rican citizen it works like this: If you can afford insurance, you buy it, if you cannot, the state pays for your medical.
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\nAlso on the site, there is an american ex-pat who has been down there for yrs and he knows a "healer". He has taken people to this native healer with the following results:
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\n1) reversal of diabetes
\n2) reversal of some other chronic conditions
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\nand as in western medicine, once he took an injured person to the healer who gave him some herbal prep and said take him to a regular hospital, I cannot treat traumas.\r\n

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\r\n \r\n So, as for the rising costs of Hospital/Doctor bills, medications, and co-pay, we can all thank the antitrust violating healthcare provider (ha) Blue Cross Blue Shield! Because they decided make deals with hospitals in many states, it\'s costing all of us that don\'t have them as a provider
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\nI had to drop my insurance because I couldn\'t afford it anymore. I guess I just have to risk it for now.
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\nAnyone else dealing with this?\r\n

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\r\n \r\n Been their done that. Basically wound up getting the cheapest plan that I could find, of course anything short of a brain transplant was not covered and what was covered was on an 80-20% ratio. \r\n

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\r\n \r\n Remember when Nancy Pelosi didn\'t want us to know what was in the healthcare bill until after it was passed. How she said just, "pass it and then read it.". Well here are some of the things in it that a Texas judge found by actually reading it!
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\n** Page 50/section 152: The bill will provide insurance to all non-U.S. residents, even if they are here illegally.
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\n** Page 58 and 59: The government will have real-time access to an individual\'s bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts.
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\n** Page 65/section 164: The plan will be subsidized (by the government) for all union members, union retirees and for community organizations (such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - ACORN).
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\n** Page 203/line 14-15: The tax imposed under this section will not be treated as a tax. (How is that for some 1984 doublespeak?)
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\n** Page 241 and 253: Doctors will all be paid the same regardless of specialty, and the government will set all doctors\' fees.
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\n ** Page 272. section 1145: Cancer hospitals will ration care according to the patient\'s age.
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\n** Page 317 and 321: The government will impose a prohibition on hospital expansion; however, communities may petition for an exception.
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\n** Page 425, line 4-12: The government mandates advance-care planning consultations. Those on Social Security will be required to attend an "end-of-life planning" seminar every five years. (Death counseling..)
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\n** Page 429, line 13-25: The government will specify which doctors can write an end-of-life order.
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\n "Finally considering how well crafted this bill was to fit everyone\'s needs, it is specifically stated that this it will not apply to members of Congress. As members of Congress are already exempt from the Social Security system, and have their own well-funded private plan that covers their retirement needs\r\n

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\r\n \r\n I sure would like to see this bill Mad Scientist... to see exactly how its written. Ive been though this before regarding end of life care and how the conservatives slant the issue. I\'ve worked directly with real life issues in the medical field regarding end of life and I know what the truth is.
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\nI do not trust right wing conservatives to interpret things correctly... their slant is sometimes extreme so I need to read this for myself.
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\nBTW, all doctors fees are already set for the treatment of medicare patients. This is why so many are now refusing to take medicare patients... they cant keep their offices afloat if they take too many. They are not permitted to take just a few. they must take all that call them or none so they cannot even just take what they can financially afford to manage.
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\nPerhaps it is a good thing that cancer hospitals ration care? many of us already know that many people who forego cancer treatment live longer anyway. Statistics show that those elderly who do chemo and radiation in the most senior years, 80\'s and 90\'s have a terrible prognosis and it almost equates to torture.
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\nIt is not an order for "end of life" it is an order for "end of life care", not to end a life but to provide the type of care to make the end of life days free from treatments that cause distress and to provide utmost comfort in face of all the very painful diagnosises and diseases people have.
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\nThe government should specify which doctors can write an "end of life order" as this article calls it, for they should be specifically trained... BTW... "there is no end of life order"... that is total Bull Shit! This counseling to developed a plan of care in face of the most adverse health conditions and prognosis through end of life counseling session has been going on without pay to most physicians for many years. They could not bill for this discussion, which often takes a hour or more. Whats your hour worth?
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\nOnce palliative or hospice care has been agreed upon per the family or patient it forces the hand to stop doctors or nurses from doing what would impose their will upon a dying patient to take treatments that are no longer wanted. An order for "end of life care" comes from the patient or family if the patient cannot communicate, to utilize palliative care and to provide for the patient all means of pain control under hospice direction, preferably. It opens the door to hospice care and the hospice billing system. The family/patient has the right to refuse it even after they have enrolled in it.
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\nYou may not like ACORN, they have been around for 40 years or more and they have done a lot to help the poor city communities over the years. A few of their memebers got caught doing some bad stuff.... but lets look at some of the Charity organizations that go into offices across the nation to solicit funds from employees, look at just how much of that money acturally goes to the people they solicit for! It it theivery and I put United Way at the top. When I found my husband donated to them he caught hell from me. Some have as much as 50 or 70 percent go to pay the solicitors and organizers and fat ass chair sitters of the charity who do next to nothing but because they are pretty white folks who look middle class or better they never get called on the carpet. I may be prejudice because I have spent time working for ACORN and I have seen the good they have done and the shoestring that they work on.... on issues that pretty white folks are afraid to touch... especially early on, regarding HIV education into the poor sectors and the construction of nuclear reactors..was what I was dealing with... so I call racist right wing pro nuclear corporate BULL SHIT here too.
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\nI just don\'t know what to think about imposing limits of hospital expansion, considering over 50 percent of hospitals operate in the red anyway. We have hospitals in major cities sitting empty because they are broke or funding failed. Too many beds and not enough money to fund them.
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\nBe that as it may, we may be loosing much of medicare and medicaid anyway. Are we all ready to take in our neighbor when he/she breaks their hip at age 75? Right wing conservatives may be glad to know that nursing homes are closing in Idaho due to medicaid cuts... those people are cast to the wind. Soon we will be seeing cripples on all our street corners begging for their survival...
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\nfunny how conservatives dont want social programs but when cuts are impelemented the squawk squawk squawk.
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\nWell cuts are coming becasue we are broke. Should we take away the living potential of a young child or of a 90 year old invalid? Tell me conservatives! speak ups\\and then shut up when cuts come.
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\nId like to see Sara Palin, John Boehner and Michele Bachman take a couple of them medicaid invalids in... cause I certainly don\'t want to.
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\nConservatives, if they want to squawk, should start squawking about how much we spend on war... illegal wars at that.... that end up funding terrorist corporations like Haliburton into the multi multi billions of dollars... and who\'s greed and negligence have damaged many of our young men and women in uniform.\r\n

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\r\n \r\n I am unclear on how not wanting to treat a patient is an assault.
\nA doctor has a right to refuse a patient just as a patient has the right to refuse a doctor. And on on the other hand a phsycian cannot dump a patient. He must provide a source to another physican or clinic.
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\nUnless they are medicaid or medicare providers... then I think by law they must take all that walk in the door... but even then, though documentation a doctor can make a case for not wanting to care for a patient, when events have occured that make them feel like they cannot provide the care they deem necessary under threat or intimadation either from the patient or the family.
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\nPerhaps he was responding to a concern that the family dynamics may be askew.
\nDo you think that he cannot perceive your anger and want to get away from it?
\nDoctors and nurses are quite skilled at reading the temperature of the emotional context of situations.
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\n
\nI have seem family members come into facilities packing guns they are so mad. Always doctors must maintain a calm stand, and of negotiation, yet one of anticipating the worst and being prepared for it in the recesses of their mind, for most of them have seen the worst at one time or another.
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\nHard for me to say because I cannot see the total picture but I know how I feel when approached by an angry family member... I long for the encounter to end as soon as possible if they cannot be brought around to reasonable discussion in a fairly short period of time.\r\n

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