Thanks BarryRx for the support. What can you say when someone replies with such ignorance. I don't get the point.

Another issue ...
 

Now, a couple of days past the stress of dealing with a family member's eye injury (which is healing though very slowly), I'm beginning to wonder what other specialties have no one on call nights and weekends in our region. Not a reassuring thought....

Hi, I am afraid that the fact that a large number of us are on Medicare is causing us problems. Medicare has such poor reimbursement to the physicians, and a lot of doctors don't want to or can't afford to take mostly Medicare patients, especially a lot of the younger ones who may still have huge college loans to pay. I am not trying to stir up anything here, but I was told by many medical school students that 20+years ago, there was a large number of foreign students who were given free or largely free tuition to medical schools in the US because colleges were trying to show diversity . Is that the reason we have so many doctors here who weren't born in this country???? I truly don't know. But I am on my second primary doctor, and am thinking about changing again. I am also afraid that with the Affordable Care Act, things are going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better-if at all. (esp. for seniors) No flames please anyone. This is my OPINION, and it is fine if people don't agree with me.

Would that be pulmonary specialist? I would like to know if there is a good one here. I don't know which one my dear friend went to here having terrible breathing difficulty (She was a snowbird and having her chemo administered here on orders from her Chicago oncologist) but when she returned to Chicago her oncologist found that he had failed to see that it was due to her heart being damaged by the chemo she was on and switched her over.


I think that doctor here should have checked for that. I would like to consult a pulmonary specialist due to my scoliosis, but hesitate, not knowing which one she used. Ruthie has passed.

Thinking about emergency eye care. I will contact my eye care group and ask how they treat an emergency situation after working hours. I may never need it but I would like to know just in case.

Finding "on call" specialists is always problematic when you don't have teaching hospitals (hospitals with interns and residents). As the insurance companies pushed for more and more day surgery, the rationale for doctors to maintain privileges at hospitals (and the required on call days that come with it as well as costs) led docs to stop doing surgery in hospitals and do it in their own clinics instead. If you look at the local ophthalmologists, all do surgeries in their own offices/clinics. And the hospitals don't want docs who don't bring them business working at their hospital.

I knew an oral surgeon whose wife got fed up with the unpaid bills (over 90%) of "after hours patients" who started going in with her hubby and collaring the patients family to pay while her husband worked on the person. Still collected less than 50% of bills due.

I'm sorry, but your generalizations do not hold water. Unless you have seen every single physician in the entire area, how can you possibly say that none of them are any good? That is the same as saying there are no good mechanics, clothing stores, hardware stores, restaurants, grocery stores, barbers and hairdressers, etc.

Not every doctor can possibly be at the place where you describe. Are there bad apples here? Sure. Are there bad apples there? You betcha. You were apparently fortunate enough not to encounter one.

My whole point is: One cannot lump everyone, whether it is a physician or mechanic or whatever into one category. My husband is alive and still with me because of the EXCELLENT skill of the doctors HERE, and for that I am eternally grateful. We definitely do not get all the "culls".

And THAT is "where the rubber meets the road"!

ilovetv, to my knowledge, no ophthalmologists go to TVRH, they all pulled out sometime again and use their own surgery centers. I retired RN from TVRH and recently had to have cataract surgery under the hospital's insurance. It would have been a lot cheaper for me if I could have had it done at TVRH. Not sure why they all pulled out...probably more $ in their pockets!
In response to your comment on how busy the ophthalmologists are in their practice, how about the surgeon who performed complicated surgeries all day but are on-call for emergencies and called back in the middle of the night for an emergency appendectomy? Just know there are docs on call at the hospitals, just not ophthalmologists at TVRH. I, too, hope the availability at our local hospitals increases!