Primary Care Doctors

This afternoon I have an appointment with a new primary care doctor, one I’ve never seen before. I had no choice but to select a new one because I had to buy new insurance this year, and my old doctor wasn’t “in the network.” It took three months to get this appointment.

I don’t like doctors even on a good day. Especially “primary care” doctors. As far as I can tell, the main goal of this type of doctor is to shove you out the office door as fast as possible with the most generic of healthcare solutions that they can think of: “Here, take this generic prescription and come back in a couple weeks if your problem’s not better.” That appears to be the main thing they teach you in primary care doctor school.

I assume it’s because a lot of people trudge to the doctor when all they really need to do is wait and let the body heal itself. Unfortunately I only go to the doctor when I’ve already exhausted that strategy. By the time I get to a doctor, I’m pretty sure it’s something more serious than a cold or flu-like, for example, a cataract, or not being able to hold a plate or bend my thumb for most of a month.

Of course this doctor doesn’t know that. For all they know I could be walking in just to scam some opioids, which is actually a big problem in this country. I need to make sure it’s clear I’m not just looking for painkillers here.

Anyway, hopefully by this time tomorrow I might have, if not some new insight or answers about my hands, then at least perhaps a referral to another specialist, or an appointment for some x-rays or blood tests, or something like that. (Because primary care doctors usually don’t even have x-ray machines or labs anymore.) That will at least be a step in the right direction.

I also need to remember to get that referral “code” I need for the cataract specialist. That appointment is scheduled for Friday.