Recently, I went to my appointment with my pain management specialist only to find out he’d left to go form his own practice. They gave me his new contact information. Why they couldn’t have contacted me and saved me the trip in is beyond me, but with health practitioners, not much makes sense these days.

So a couple of days ago, I called the doctor’s new number to schedule an appointment. It’s a post-surgery appointment, for Pete’s sake! It’s kind of important. As I was scheduling my appointment, the woman on the phone told me he wasn’t accepting insurance, so I would have to pay with cash or a money order. I was stunned! Appalled. Mortified. I’ve been out of work for awhile now and can’t afford to pay for health care visits out of pocket. More importantly, I have insurance — good insurance — and isn’t that what it’s there for? Why in the hell isn’t he taking insurance? Well, I’ve heard the reasons lately, mostly from health care practitioners, and it sounds like sour grapes to me. Doctors don’t make the money they used to with insurance. They don’t make enough money. They don’t want to take insurance anymore and would rather have people pay out of pocket so they can pocket all the dough. Greedy bastards! I guess two yachts and three mansions aren’t good enough anymore. I’m sorry, but don’t they understand that if they don’t take insurance, they’ll see a big drop off in patients? People can’t afford to spend $400 for a visit to the damn doctor! I know that’s a drop in the bucket to doctors. To me, that’s a lot of money and I don’t have it. I’m busy making insurance payments with it. Don’t they see this? Do they not care? Are they seriously this greedy and selfish? I’ve heard the sob stories. One of my former doctors said after he pays out his overhead and staff expenses, etc., he makes about as much as a teacher, but I find that very hard to believe. My fiance worked in the healthcare industry and I know plenty of other people who do as well, and I know how many patients these doctors are scheduling and how much they’re charging and I’m pretty convinced they’re not hurting. And besides, why do they have to be so damn greedy? I thought you got into medicine to help your fellow man. Or is that a thing of the past?

This isn’t isolated. A year and a half ago, I was dissatisfied with one of my specialists and started calling around to find a replacement. Not one was taking insurance. So I’m still stuck with this joker of a doctor. A similar situation occurred again about a year ago. I think this is a sign of times to come. Doctors just aren’t going to take insurance cause they want ALL the cash from the visit their patients make to them. And God forbid someone on Medicare or Medicaid seek medical help. All I ever see are signs on doctors’ walls stating they no longer take Medicare patients. WTF? Greedy bastards! I’ve heard people try to get me to pity them by stating that they went to college for eight years and had a residency to make it through and have big college loans. Well, boo hoo. I went to college for 13 years, have three — and nearly four — degrees and will be paying my student loans until I’m nearly 70 years old. And I don’t make anything close to what a doctor makes. No sympathy, sorry.

I’m not sure how to end this blog post. Has anyone reading this had similar experiences? Any advice? Any further thoughts? Any solutions? I’m really worried about the future of healthcare — mine especially — and if our expensive insurance is no longer going to be honored by our doctors, where does that leave us? Screwed, right? Right.