These are words I never thought I’d speak.
I switched to this new health insurance, GroupHealth, after my COBRA expired — it came highly recommended and cost less than my former insurance company. I went in for my first appointment today. The following things happened:
1) I arrived at the front desk, was immediately checked in, given my new patient forms, which were only one (!) page long. One page of forms. Form, really. I thought I might not have all the pages. For chrissake, my dentist had like 10 pages of forms for me.
2) Was retrieved from the waiting room only 10 minutes after my scheduled appointment time. Had my blood pressure taken and was weighed right away, then taken to another room to wait for the doctor. I took out my book and prepared for a 30 minute wait.
3) The doctor comes in like 2 minutes later. She is super sweet and seems to actually give a fuck about me. She has a computer with a screen that looks like it is running software written at some point during this millenium. She faces the screen toward me so that I can see everything she is typing.
4) We talk about the meds I am currently on. I tell her I would like new sleeping pills because my current ones give me restless legs and I also need lorazapam and propanolol for my fear of flying. She gives me the propanolol scrip immediately, and tells me she’d like me to have a psych consult before she prescribes the lorazapam and sleeping pills, which is totally understandable and expected. She gives me enough to tide me over. She also gives me a number to call for the psych consult. Best of all, she agrees to renew my birth control for a full year without insisting on sticking a metal pipe up my vagina when I have absolutely no history of gyno problems. I am in love with my new doctor.
5) I tell her about how I want blood tests done to check my thyroid and iron levels. “No problem,” she says, and approves them all. She also recommends I get tested for Vitamin D levels and approves that test. “You can go do that today, downstairs.” I am stunned. Blood tests with my old health insurance required a trip to a lab across town. “And after that you can go pick up your prescriptions at the pharmacy. You can schedule a phone appointment with me at the front desk for a week from now and we’ll go over your blood test results.”
6) I make the phone appointment, then go downstairs to get my blood drawn. I wait for all of 3 minutes before they take me inside. I explain to the guy drawing the blood that I have a fear of needles and have a tendency to puke and/or pass out when having blood drawn. Instead of being like “Oh well don’t do that here!” like people usually do, he was like “Well, why don’t we take you to a room where you can lie down while we draw your blood?” It made all the difference in the world! I didn’t feel nauseous or light-headed. It was way less awful than blood-drawing usually is for me. I couldn’t believe how nice they were being and that I was being treated like a human being.
7) I go to the pharmacy, which is also in the same building. I wait about 10 minutes for my number to get called. The lady at the counter is friendly! She doesn’t seem to hate me on sight! She asks questions about my use of the drugs, like she actually gives a fuck about me. It takes her like two full minutes to get my prescription filled, and then she apologizes because it took so long (???). I get three months worth of birth control (WTF??? My old insurance would only let me get one at a time! Sooo much easier this way!!!), my lorazapam and my propanolol for only $50.
That was it. I arrived at 11:30 and was done by 12:45. Accomplishing all those things with my old health insurance would have taken at least two full days, seriously. Maybe I just got really, really lucky today, but I was blown away by how smoothly everything went. I was mentally prepared for a way bigger hassle to have to take care of all these things. Why can’t all health care be like this?
