Having health insurance is only part of the solution. Here in Massachusetts we have state health insurance so basically everyone has access to health insurance. This is a good thing and one of the things that went along with this was the premise that people would go to their regular doctors instead of emergency rooms. Well that part didn't work. ER rates are higher than in the past.
The problem was insurance was made accessible but we didn't create an infrastructure so that people could get into see their doctors. We need to make doctors more accessible. There are too many patients for each doctor (I don't have the numbers so you can just take my word for it) and often people resort to ERs for medical care because they can't get into see their doctor in a reasonable amount of time. If you call your doctor for a problem and they can't see you for a month, that is a problem.
I have a plan A, plan B, and plan C for medical care. My plan A is I call my doctor's office and see when I can get an appointment. My doctor doesn't have evening hours but some of the ones in her office do and usually I can get into to see a doctor on the same day. My plan B is to go to the hospital's walk in clinic which is open most evenings and on Saturday mornings.
If I am dripping (a lot of) blood, I will resort to plan C which is to go to the ER. I have to be dying or losing a lot of blood before I will go to an ER. I have spent too much time sitting around ERs waiting - even when I have gone there on a doctor's orders and then had to wait six hours to get into see a doctor and then another six hours to be admitted. At that point I should have just waited and called my doctor in the morning and gone to see them then.
Anyhow you get my point, now that insurance is getting more accessible, the next step is medical centers and doctors need to make access to doctors easier. I don't think we should blame the doctors but we need to ask the medical centers to look at how they schedule them and at the doctor's load of patients.
3 comments:
You raise some valid concerns here. I'm not sure what the best answers are. I am happy about some of the recent changes in health care like no more discrimination for pre-existing conditions and being able to keep your kids on your plan til age 26 while they are in school.
I agree with your points and have realized the thing that if one is having a health plan he is not at all free to choose doctor but there is a predefined list of hospitals that will support him and his insurance policy. But changes that are made day by day gives a hope that better facilities will be made.
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