George N. M. Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 I just got back from seeing my doctor and while I'm generally in pretty good shape and you folk are going to have to put up with me for some time yet he did tell me that I could stand to build some muscle mass. When I told him that I was a blacksmith he said that that sort of work and swinging a hammer is good exercise. So, I told Madelynn that if I am out in the shop it is on doctor's orders. It's not something I want to do, it's something I have to do. If necessary, I will ask him for a script that I need to spend X hours per day or week in the shop. Just a thought that y'all might want to ask your doctors abut being required to spend time in the shop. It is certainly more healthy than sitting in a recliner with a fermented malt beverage in your hand. And, IMO, much more enjoyable. "By hammer and hand all arts do stand." + Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daswulf Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 Lol. That is the best dr. Script i have ever heard of. Funny that every time I see the doc, they ask if I exercise. I tell them i work an that is my exercise. They don't seem to get that my job is physically exerting and then forging on top of that on occasion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimw3326 Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 Never saw the sense in paying someone to allow me to lift their steel when I got paid to do it all day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 You have a good dr. I've had ones that believe a pill is the only answer. I'm very touchy when it comes to medicines. Pills have their place but not for everything. My mom once had a doctor tell her work, exercise and fresh air do wonders for what ails you. She's still going strong at 81. Everything in moderation and regular check ups. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted February 1 Share Posted February 1 This is not medical advice but my own personal observation. Another thing you might have your doctor check is your testosterone level. After surviving testicular cancer in 2017 at age 74 I began finding my strength and stamina starting to wane. Every time I went to my PCP for my annual check up, I would mention that to him. He had been my doctor for over 30 years and I figured he knew my body better than I did. He would always tell me it was normal as we age and said that a testosterone level test wasn't warranted. Well he retired back in 2019 or 2020 and I got a new PCP who took his place. We hit it off from the start even though he was a lot younger and a D.O. He knew I was retired and did blacksmithing as a hobby and was very interested in that. When I told him that I went from being able to pick up and carry a 120 pound anvil, to struggling to move something that weighed about 40 pounds and had to use pliers to open the stupid aluminum seal on a can of coffee, along with only being able to work in the forge for an hour or two instead of all day. He decided that he would test my T-level as part of my physical. Normal T-levels for my age are something like 200-400 and mine came back at 40. He put me on T-Gel therapy and now I'm pretty much back with my strength and stamina before chemo & radiation treatment. Although I haven't had to pick up an anvil, I can pick up a 40 pound sack of dog food and carry it to the truck and open those coffee cans using just my thumb & index finger. So definitely my strength has returned and I can swing my hammer most of the day instead of having to quit after an hour. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 I've fired doctors for talking at me instead of with me, nurses are the worst, I've heard a version of "I'm a medical professional and you aren't," many times more often from nurses than doctors. Unfortunately it's getting so you don't see doctors anymore, just levels of "nurse" specializing in a really narrow field. The more socialized medicine becomes the more a pill is the answer. <sigh> Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irondragon Forge ClayWorks Posted February 2 Share Posted February 2 My new PCP has a Nurse PA and she is great with years of experience. I think she is teaching him some stuff like bedside manner and how to talk with older patients (like me). I really hate breaking in a new doctor. I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s. Semper Paratus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkie Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 When we moved to Arkansas, I told the wife that we needed to find a good doctor, one with grey hair and experience, so we didn't have to train one. Well, now it seems that the old, grey haired docs are retiring and now we have to train the new, young, less experienced ones......hmmmmm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 3 Share Posted February 3 I hear you, I'm raving to find replacements for doctors I've been training since before their hair turned gray. Worse, some of the new ones aren't just inexperienced they're undertrained. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George N. M. Posted February 4 Author Share Posted February 4 I have had better luck with DO doctors reater than MD doctors. This may be because DOs are trained more to treat the whole person rather than just prescribe drugs. It gas worked for us. GNM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chenier Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 4 hours ago, Frosty said: Worse, some of the new ones aren't just inexperienced they're undertrained. A friend of ours, now near retirement, was trained and worked as an ER physician before, umm, "settling in" to proctology. He says the watershed moment was the 2003 rule that medical residents could only work 80 hours/week over a 4-week period. Prior to that there was no hourly limit. The time period of the residency didn't change. Residency is where docs get all their post-med school training in their specialty. Our friend says the residents coming out of the system after the rule change only had about half the experience and specialty training of their predecessors and it really showed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 That sounds about like how things work. Hospitals save money or a union isn't making enough so . . . Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arkie Posted February 4 Share Posted February 4 I have noticed a trend lately, and I don't know if it's gonna be good or bad, but a large number of private practitioners, general MD's, specialists, private clinics, etc. have been abandoning their private practices and contracting with the 3 or 4 large regional hospitals in our area. It could be medical insurance coverage for them, or problems with their patients' medical insurance, costs associated with a private practice, job security with a large hospital, access to more facilities/programs, wider exposure, liability protection, job burnout, the list could go on....... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzkill Posted February 5 Share Posted February 5 Same thing in my area. There are 5 hospitals total in 3 cities within 30 miles of me, but all of them belong to one of two major health care provider conglomerates. Nearly all the urgent care, specialized care, clinics, etc. are also associated with one or the other. My PCP was in an independent practice with a couple other physicians when I started with him, but now he's also under the umbrella of one of the 2 major providers in my area. I think it's the health care industry version of the national chains squeezing out the "mom and pop" grocery stores and gas stations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Hibbert Posted February 6 Share Posted February 6 My brother in law was in a private group that got bought by a one of the local hospital chains. He was glad about it and said they made a lot of things easier since he only had to worry about the actual doctor stuff and they dealt with all the non-doctor things (insurance billing, hiring staff, etc.). I'm sure there were things he didn't like too (time per visit and the like), but he really didn't go into that. He's just retired so he also doesn't have to deal with business succession. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billyO Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 On 2/5/2024 at 9:40 AM, Buzzkill said: I think it's the health care industry version of the national chains squeezing out the "mom and pop" grocery stores and gas stations. As a former Physical Therapist, this is true. As is the fact that an ever-increasing number of hospitals and doctor's offices, as well as more and more industries and business in general, are financed by private equity where it seems the only thing that's important is increasing returns for investors. This has driven away a lot of practitioners who got into the business because we liked helping people, not because we wanted a large salary. So instead of practitioners who spend their time improving their skills in treating dysfunction and disease, what you are left with is a bunch of practitioners who are thinking primarily about how their decisions affect their reimbursement rate, not on what's the best for the patient. Oh, and let's not forget that these same private equity firms hire managers who are only interested in numbers and force practitioners into unrealistic metrics, like maintaining an 85% productivity rate, which means that we have to be able to bill for 85% of the time we spent with the patient. Rant over, go forge! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daswulf Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 Ya know its bad when "med express" wants to start making appointments rather than emergency walk ins. Then they just want to shoot you to the ER at the hospital if something is inconvenient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frosty Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 Yeah, good luck talking to a doctor too. I recently saw a "pulmonary specialist" to see about treating my COPD. Well, it's a "sleep medicine" and other stuff office. I did some tests but most of the discussion from Lisa was about how much a sleep study did for her. It didn't matter how many times I told her I wasn't going to do one. PERIOD she maintained the sales pitch. Worse was the receptionist who complained about how much she had to talk on the phone. Like "receptionist" means anything else than " person who receives". I was unable to sign up with the "Medical Network" used by the office which is what rendered her first complaint about answering the phone. I told her to send appointment reminders via email, phone or text. More complaining. No reminder, in fact the ONLY communications I've gotten were spam messages from other medical networks, drug and such companies and about 2x day requests to sign up for a sleep study. Two phone calls even. The med network is based on the East coast and as far as I could tell is a clearing house for opt in marketing. It even wanted a monthly fee! I am un-joyful about my "enhanced experience". Happily my general not quite physician agreed to write prescriptions for the meds I've been using. She won't actually treat COPD though but that's okay the current meds work well. Sorry about the rant but I really don't like where medicine is going. Frosty The Lucky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 18 hours ago, Daswulf said: Then they just want to shoot you to the ER at the hospital if something is inconvenient. And then you can just sit there in the ER for hours or days because they are over-run. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buzzkill Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 On 3/2/2024 at 7:43 PM, billyO said: This has driven away a lot of practitioners who got into the business because we liked helping people, not because we wanted a large salary. Yep, the best people are leaving, retiring, or dying off. A few years ago when I had tendonitis I was with my wife for an appointment and she mentioned my tennis elbow. Without missing a beat the doctor asked if I wanted a shot for it. It was not my appointment, nor was I even officially a patient of his, but I had a problem and he had a treatment. I'm guessing he may have gotten some blowback if the bean counters knew he had done that, but he made an immediate impression on me and I knew after that I would see him for anything from the shoulder to the fingertips (his specialty). Sadly, he passed away a few years ago. The other doctors in the same practice are good, but they are not him. I don't think a single one of them would treat a person before knowing they could bill the treatment. He did it without hesitation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott NC Posted March 4 Share Posted March 4 I got a suprise the other day. I took my mom in for an appointment at the doctor that did her cataracts, they had changed her appointment from afternoon to morning because he had to do an urgent case. She was having real problems with sight and pain in one eye and the appointment was just to determine what was wrong. The place was packed with patients waiting and I thought, here we go. We got in after a wait and he looked with his instruments and said she had scarring developing from the surgery, which he said happens. He lasered off the scarring then and there. It's a quick process, but I know he had patients waiting and the appointment was just to find out the problem. I expected another round of long drawn out appointments and it takes a long time to get in. Sometimes I am too critical of things. Now the DMV.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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