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I wanted to provide an update on the whole health care and my son’s eye situation. Now, if you haven’t had a chance to read my article on Health Care in America – Not What It Use To Be, it talks about how I feel about the healthcare system and how I believe it has let us down, and this is in relation to my son’s eye problem.
So, in my article, I mentioned that my wife was going to take my son back to Mexico to see an eye doctor, but at the last minute she decided not to, of course with a little bit of arguing going back and forth, instead, we took him to an Eye clinic here in the states. I fairly recall this was one of the first doctors my son had seen towards the beginning of this whole eye issue. Anyhow, we called to see if we could get him seen because it was urgent, but the previous doctor was not available. So, they scheduled my son with a new doctor, I mean literally a new doctor, he told us that this was his first month and was getting settled in. Now, before we saw the doctor, of course, we had a nurse, or I am not sure, but someone came in to evaluate him. They did an eye test, pressure test, and asked some basic questions. Visit Six: Once the doctor arrived, he also did some tests, looked at his eye through some machines, asked questions, and so on. He took a good solid 30 minutes. Now I am not sure this was because he was a new doctor, but I am just saying, usually we were in and out. At the end of it all, he told my son what he thought he had and prescribed some medication. I believe it was a steroid, a strong version of it. Now he did want to see my son in 6 days, and my son scheduled the appointment. His eye did get better, and I accompanied him to his follow-up appointment. Once again, we had someone come in before the doctor and pretty much did the same thing the other person did. Visit Seven: The doctor came in and right away said that his eye was looking better. My son told him he was still having issues seeing, and everything looked blurry. Well, the doctor re-examined his eye, diluted his eye, and once again he completely did a thorough look at both his eyes using a special headset to look close into the eye. I was looking at the time, and it was a good 30 minutes again, maybe a little shorter. This time he preceded to prescribe him a steroid medication again, but a lower strength level, I guess you could say. There was some trouble with the prescription because I don’t think the doctor has the ability to prescribe medication just yet, because the last time he had to get another doctor to fill out the prescription for him, it happened again this time.
So, check this out, as soon as we left the first appointment, I got a notification from my insurance company about a new claim. I mean it was literally the same day, just a few hours after seeing the doctor. I was curious and I went in to see what the cost was going to be. If you recall I mentioned the last time we were at this location it was $467, this time, it showed $197 as my portion to pay. Now, I am still waiting for the bill to arrive, but the price difference confused me. Is it possible that since he is a new doctor they charge less, and seasoned doctors simply charge more for the same type of visit – I don’t know, but the price difference caught my eye. Right now, as far as I know, since my son is away at college, he has told me that he is doing better, he still cannot see all that well, but at least now he can do his homework, and complete the tests. He needed this because he has midterms this week. So, I am glad we were able to help him out because he was stressed about midterms and his eye.
My point is that I don’t know if maybe this whole thing was partly because my son was not putting his part into it, or that the first doctor, in this case, the seasoned doctor, simply did not care, and was just prescribing a combination of medication to see what would work. It’s hard for me to understand because I don’t know what happened. The thing is I wasn’t going to any of his previous appointments, and I really did not know what was going on. This time I took charge and had a talk with my son and told him, that he is a grown man, and he needs to learn to set his priorities. It is either taking care of his eye or worrying about school or his girlfriend and what would happen. Because I told him, this is a no-brainer, what do you want, miss some school, miss a day with your girlfriend, or lose your eye. Talk to your professors I am sure they can work something out and as for your girlfriend, I am not happy at all with her, because she should be worrying about your health not if you are going to go to the movies or if you are going to see her. So, this time around, you need to commit, and so far, he has, and he is scheduled for another follow-up in two weeks. I think we got it, and whatever happened these last 8 months, lets’ chalk it up as a learning experience and not do it again.
“All in all, I want to say that I believe that the Health Care System in our country is not what it used to be.”
Hey, once again at the end of my post, and as always, I want to thank you for stopping by and leave you with this thought, “We love our kids, and we want to protect them from everything, but I think there is a line between too much handholding and letting them be independent. What I have learned as a parent is that the best thing you can do is teach them about life, those things we all go through as adults, you know, how to manage your bank, shop, cook, clean, about building credit, what to do in case of a health emergency, saving in general whether it is for retirement, or a down payment for a house/condo. Let the school system teach them how to get where they want and let us parents teach them how to maneuver to that destination.” I don’t know, does that make sense.