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| Blake Wilbur Building | Jennifer Morrow |
Healthcare in rural New York is a fucking joke.
When we moved out here to the sticks, Big's CEO finally figured out that he had too many employees outside of his chosen insurance company's network to keep it as the only option, and picked up an insurance company that participates with doctors all over the state.
I was SO EXCITED because last year, I had to pay out of pocket to get a breast exam, mammogram, and sonogram done because the only doctor who would see me and evaluate the lumps I'd found in my breasts without making me get a physical first was the doctor in the town where we buy groceries, and she was out of network.
This also meant a monthly premium decrease by $100, which was fan-fucking-tastic because the GOP's tax "cut" actually increased the amount of income taxes Big is required to pay.
My primary care physician (who was in network, but was also an hour drive away) told her receptionist to tell me that she wouldn't see me for the lumps until after she'd done a full physical, despite the fact that their next open physical slot wasn't for another four months.
My primary care physician (PCP) wanted me to wait four months to get a breast exam after finding three lumps in my breasts. FOUR MONTHS. Breast cancer can metastasize in a matter of weeks, and she wanted me to wait four months.
Personally, I think that bitch should lose her license, but after hearing the same thing from so many physicians, I realized that this is an issue that needs to be addressed on a much larger scale. But that's another conversation for another day.
In the end, when I filled out the paperwork for our new insurance, I chose to stick with the physician who didn't want me to wait four months for a breast exam after I'd found three lumps in my breasts. Who wouldn't?
When we moved here, I expected most things to be different. How could they not? We went from a crime ridden, poverty stricken (thanks, GE!) city of about 65,000 people to an almost crime free, lower middle class farm town with a population of about 1400.
I expected a cost of living increase, and I got it.
Groceries and other necessary goods are more expensive and further away.
In the winter, it's colder and cold for longer out here than in the city, so we require more expensive methods of heating our home. Those methods are made even more expensive by transport charges from the companies who provide them.
We're on well water, so an electric pump is needed to keep our kitchen and bathroom running (though, surprisingly, our electric bill is lower here than it was in the city, and we're in a much bigger house).
We have to pay more for garbage removal if we don't want to drive our trash to the dump. We only have one car, and we'd really like for it to not smell like garbage, so we pay the extra cost.
Gas is more expensive.
Indoor entertainment (movies, bowling, even fast food) is almost nonexistent, so travel for those things is more costly.
We expected our car insurance to go down because, most of the time, we park it in our garage and the crime rate is much lower here than in the city, but it actually went up.
I was expecting most of those things. What I wasn't expecting is how difficult it is to get a doctor's appointment out here.
I should have. I have a Twitter friends who tweet all the time about how difficult it is for them to get an appointment.
I assumed that that wasn't a thing here.
I mean, it's not a thing in the city. In the city, there are clinics you can walk right into without an appointment and get seen. There are so many specialists that some don't even have afternoon appointment slots because they don't have any patients to fill them.
When I called to make my first appointment (that I ended up having to cancel because I was still waiting on my new insurance information) with my new PCP, the doctor's schedule for 2018 was completely clear. When I looked up doctors for Big, all of the physicians at the local clinic were accepting new patients.
By the time I was able to reschedule my appointment, my PCP didn't have a slot open for a month. By the time Big got around to scheduling his appointment, there was only one PCP accepting new patients, and he didn't have a slot for three months. Three months!
Of course, these are just "meet and greet" appointments to go over patient history, discuss any current concerns, and work out a preventative health plan. Both of our doctors have "acute" slots for people who are sick or injured and need to be seen. But in May, my doctor prescribed an EMG to test the nerves in my arms because I've been experiencing a great deal of pain any time I do "too much" with my hands ("too much" varies day to day), losing feeling in my hands, and losing feeling in my fingertips for days, sometimes weeks at a time, and the local hospital (where I have to go for the test) didn't have an open slot until mid-July.
Good thing it's not an emergency.
While we're on the subject of emergencies, people have been bemoaning the overcrowding of emergency rooms all over the country. People living in poverty or without health insurance use the ER as a PCP, having no other options to them. And where do you think people who require a doctor's note to be out sick are going to go when their PCP is too busy to see them? That's right. The ER.
In March of 2017, Forbes reported a 30% increase in wait times for an appointment with a doctor. They cited a doctor shortage being caused by Boomers reaching retirement age. Maybe that's the issue in rural NY. I don't know. All I know is healthcare out here is a fucking joke, and I'm so frustrated.
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