Welcome to Charlottesville! If you aren’t sipping coffee with John Grisham at the Mudhouse, you might be jamming with Dave Matthews at Gravity Lounge. Ok, maybe not. But at least both of these venues are smoke free to help you live a little bit longer and better. Living a healthy lifestyle is key to survival with today’s health insurance.

Charlottesville has 5 billion options in healthcare. From Martha Jefferson Hospital to UVA, we have enough doctors, MRIs, and pharmacies to even preserve Liza Minnelli’s worn-down body.

However, your options might—well, almost will likely be limited if not prohibited by your health insurance. So choose wisely! I just got off the phone with a health insurance company—for the 4th time in 15 minutes. Each call ended with a Bee-bee-bee-bee disconnected sound. I have been trying to explain to them that we use a “non-contracted lab” because the test is so specialized no one does it here. However, they keep sending me letters saying, “Dr. Man! You have to stop doing this!“ I could ask our patients to go to Brazil to get the labs done, but it is winter down there right now. Brrrr!

I have a weekly medical update on NBC29, and one of the producers wants to see me. However, he chose an HMO I don’t accept. So he is kvetching to me that he can’t get a referral without seeing his PCP whom he hasn’t seen in 2 years. He tried to change PCPs but there is a one month waiting period and the new PCP can’t see him for an additional 3 months.

But it is not like HMOs are the worst. The fee for services insurances can be very—well, how do I put it politically? Oh, I’m not Bill Clinton. I don’t know how to swing this. Pains in the tuckus! Most doctors are intimidated by insurance companies in fear of losing a ton of patients should the insurance people drop the doctors. So doctors don’t complain about them openly. (By the way, I’m not complaining. I’m just practicing the 1st Amendment. How am I doing?)

It seems health insurances change their contracts with doctors as often as Madonna changes her hairstyle. One year health insurance contracts with a bunch of doctors, and the following year they poo-poo them away. So I have seen many patients scurry around looking for new doctors who accept their health insurance. (It is like scene from Miss Saigon when all the people are trying to get on the helicopters to freedom, but they are left behind to live under the communist regime. Ok, maybe it isn’t bad but isn’t life like a musical?)

Really, the best thing to do is live a healthy life and don’t get sick. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead sick in this current health care situation.

© John S Hong, MD, MS June 2006

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 10th, 2006 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.