earthbelow: (kitteh_iz_ded)
[personal profile] earthbelow
And no, I'm not referring to the refreshing change in our government coming this January, although I will say that my joy at seeing Barack Obama elected president will stay with me for the rest of my life.

No, I'm talking about healthcare in which the doctor is actually helpful.




All right, as some of you know, I ran out of my prescription of glucophage and birth control pills a couple of months ago in September. After calling the scary!clinic where I got the prescription from, I managed to schedule an appointment with them even though the doctor I saw before was no longer at that clinic.

So, they scheduled me for a 4:15 appointment. Despite my massive anxieties about going down to the scary!clinic - so named because it's a rather dodgy place and gives me the creeps and the waiting room is always filled with at least three or four screaming children and people on their cellphones despite the "no cellphone" sign.

But I needed my meds, I sucked it up and went.

I got there on time, and found out that they don't take my insurance, even though they don't give you any way to know which insurances they take until you get there. So I paid 30 dollars out of pocket, which is twice my co-pay with my insurance. And it was a wasted 30 bucks, I'll tell you that.

They were moving very slow, so I ended up waiting in the waiting room for two hours. Yes, two hours. It was six o' clock and change before I finally got called to see what I thought was the doctor.

Nope, turns out it was a midwife. AGAIN! This is the second time that they've scheduled me to see a gynecologist and sent me to a midwife because they weren't paying attention there. When I say very clearly, "I need to speak to someone who can PRESCRIBE MEDICATIONS" to two different people, I'm not sure how I end up getting sent to a midwife. Not to mention that most of the week, nurses and midwives are all they have. Since I am not pregnant and never want to be pregnant, I don't need a midwife.

What scares me is that this is the only clinic a lot of people (including me at one time) can go to if they happen not to have insurance. So if you have a more involved problem than being knocked up or trying not to get knocked up again, you're shit out of luck with that place. God forbid you should have a disease, a disorder, or something that requires actual medical expertise.

I also noticed that their exam rooms were very dirty, especially the floor. Other people's hair was all over the place and I was a little concerned about the hygiene there.

The midwife was nice as she could be, but not at all helpful. She had to take my entire history again, even though it should all be on my chart. Then she insisted that it was time for my annual round of Hide the Strange Metal Instrument In A Bodily Orifice.

Oh, and just to comment - it's speculum, not a tire jack, lady. You're just trying to see the cervix, not hide the treasure of the Sierra Madre in there. There is no need to keep cranking the goddamn speculum wider and wider. Really. If you can't see the cervix by then, either I don't have one or you need glasses.

So after that exercise in being humiliated, uncomfortable, and flashing my junk to a dubiously intelligent (but very sweet) person, I was informed that I look normal (I better, since you made such a effort to SEE EVERYTHING IN HIGH FUCKING DEF by trying to expand my vagina to the size of Lake Michigan) but it was all pointless since I wouldn't be able to get anything besides an exam until I could see a doctor.

Then I was informed that the next time the doctor was available was December, and even if I did need my meds, that was the soonest I could get them.

I came home upset, obviously. But after a pea soup that couldn't be beat and watching my nation renew my faith in humanity, I felt better.

So I said, "Fuck this. I have insurance, and I'm gonna use it."

This morning I searched around on the insurance company's website for their list of providers. Lo and behold after much frustration which literally brought me to tears, because the company lists Ob/Gyns, but doesn't tell you if they're accepting new patients, or what kind of Ob/Gyn they are. I almost called a Gynecological Oncology office and a Fertility Clinic before I started Googling the doctors.

But I found a clinic that look promising. Downtown Women Ob-Gyn, for any NYC ladies who may need to go to a good ob-gyn. I highly recommend them.

They not only were accepting new patients, but they had three open appointments for today. They also checked my insurance carefully to make sure it was accepted (and they list insurances accepted on their website). I grabbed the earliest one, got my butt on the train, and went down to SoHo.

I waited maybe twenty minutes (which is about standard for a doctor's office and after my two hour epic journey yesterday, twenty minutes was nothing), filled out some paper work, and was quickly shown to a room where I was seen by a really nice, funny, intelligent nurse practitioner who got right to work, and knew exactly what to ask and what to talk with me about.

I told her about what I'd already gone through, and she said I was off the hook for an exam, since I obviously didn't need a pelvic.

Then she did an amazing thing, the thing I've been trying to get someone to do for almost four months now: she wrote the prescriptions I needed. Just like that. No hold up, no confusions, no "I can't write this" or "we need to do extra stuff". She knew that I'd been on the medicines for a long time, that I needed them, and that I knew what I was talking about. After writing me the scripts (a year's supply, glee!), she told me to come back and see her next year for my next annual exam.

If I'd know what an upgrade it would be to actually use my insurance, I would've done this sooner. I was just afraid that everywhere would be like the scary!clinic.

Wow, it amazes me what an improvement in health care you get just for having insurance. I mean, just, woah. It's like going from a seedy flea motel to the Ritz-Carleton.

This is why we need healthcare reforms in this country. Because I don't think just those people who are insured, or insured enough, should get to go to the nice clinics with the nice doctors who know what they're doing and get adequate, even excellent care.

I think everyone should be able to go where I went. Not only because it was a much less frightening, frustrating, traumatic experience - but because it was the kind of experience that I think every woman deserves when she's dealing with something as intimate and vital to her health as her reproductive system.

And if doctor's offices were like this more often, I really think I'd have less of a phobia about it.

Still, I finally got to see a doctor without need to get poked, prodded, and practically fisted just to get a prescription for something as simple and necessary to my continued health as birth control and insulin meds.

You'd think I was trying to get my hands on crack cocaine the way the other clinic made me work for it.

The only sad thing is that the insurance I'm switching to in January doesn't cover them and they don't take it (I checked). But at least I'll have a whole freakin' year to sort that out.


So that's finally resolved (thank god!).

Now if I could just find a job that I'd actually enjoy going to, or sell a novel and make a fortune, and figure out this wedding thing, I'd have everything in my life pretty well fixed. Which kinda points to how good I have it, in comparison to others.

But fear not, because a new day is on the horizon. We have hope, we have strength, and eventually, we'll have solutions.
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August 2009

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