$395 To Make a Doctor's Appointment.
WOULD YOU BELIEVE IT COST ME $395 TO MAKE A DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENT?
Well it wasn't as though the Doctor charged me to make said appointment. It was the situation that led to the high cost of seeing the doctor.
Going back a few weeks now; my wife was having an adverse reaction to a prescribed medicine for a health issue she was having at the time. The drug hit her hard, so hard that as a consequence of taking it she collapsed.
Our village as beautiful as it is, does not have adequate medical facilities, so in the case of an emergency like this, where my wife is unconscious on the couch, I rang my local town nurse who was out of town. She advised that I call the ambulance.
This I did. The ambulance arrived as my wife was coming back to consciousness, so they did a few checks on her announcing that they could not find anything wrong with her. But advised that we go to the Doctor. The doctor is 60 kilometres from our place and always booked out. There is one bloke there who doesn't allow people to make appointments, you have to ring on one of the three days a week he works and see if you can get into see him that day. Too bad if you are sick and he has a full list.
But anyway, when we were told to go to the doctor the ambulance guy said he will make the appointment for us, that way we will get in today. So we thanked him and he made the appointment for us, being true to his word and getting us in that day. The ambulance guys were great and did the best they could under the circumstance.
We drove to the doctor and just made it in time for the arranged appointment. The doctor told my wife to stop taking the offending drug, which mind you we had already decided ourselves. But here we are, we leave the medical centre after being slogged with a bill.
A few weeks later in the mailbox is the bill for the ambulance attending my wife, $395 to be paid by so and so, or there will be fines or confiscation of property and all those sorts of issues. Thank god we didn't have to have my wife transported the bill included the four kilometre round trip the ambulance had to do.
Next time this happens we will be going straight to the Hospital Emergency Centre and loading up a system that is already under great pressure. There are many problems with NSW state health facilities. I see recently in a local election a candidate promising to build a new hospital for a town in the Snowy Mountains. That is such a fantastic idea. But where are the doctors, nurses and other medical professionals going to come from to make it work? Because the system is already under tremendous pressure as it is.
Don't let your health insurance lapse or you are up for it, cash wise. That afternoon cost us $500 plus petrol to get to the doctor.
I would like to say that everybody involved was totally professional and caring.
When I am not complaining about spending money I am an artist and you can see my art at:
Image from the web.
Well it wasn't as though the Doctor charged me to make said appointment. It was the situation that led to the high cost of seeing the doctor.
Going back a few weeks now; my wife was having an adverse reaction to a prescribed medicine for a health issue she was having at the time. The drug hit her hard, so hard that as a consequence of taking it she collapsed.
Our village as beautiful as it is, does not have adequate medical facilities, so in the case of an emergency like this, where my wife is unconscious on the couch, I rang my local town nurse who was out of town. She advised that I call the ambulance.
This I did. The ambulance arrived as my wife was coming back to consciousness, so they did a few checks on her announcing that they could not find anything wrong with her. But advised that we go to the Doctor. The doctor is 60 kilometres from our place and always booked out. There is one bloke there who doesn't allow people to make appointments, you have to ring on one of the three days a week he works and see if you can get into see him that day. Too bad if you are sick and he has a full list.
But anyway, when we were told to go to the doctor the ambulance guy said he will make the appointment for us, that way we will get in today. So we thanked him and he made the appointment for us, being true to his word and getting us in that day. The ambulance guys were great and did the best they could under the circumstance.
We drove to the doctor and just made it in time for the arranged appointment. The doctor told my wife to stop taking the offending drug, which mind you we had already decided ourselves. But here we are, we leave the medical centre after being slogged with a bill.
A few weeks later in the mailbox is the bill for the ambulance attending my wife, $395 to be paid by so and so, or there will be fines or confiscation of property and all those sorts of issues. Thank god we didn't have to have my wife transported the bill included the four kilometre round trip the ambulance had to do.
Next time this happens we will be going straight to the Hospital Emergency Centre and loading up a system that is already under great pressure. There are many problems with NSW state health facilities. I see recently in a local election a candidate promising to build a new hospital for a town in the Snowy Mountains. That is such a fantastic idea. But where are the doctors, nurses and other medical professionals going to come from to make it work? Because the system is already under tremendous pressure as it is.
Don't let your health insurance lapse or you are up for it, cash wise. That afternoon cost us $500 plus petrol to get to the doctor.
I would like to say that everybody involved was totally professional and caring.
When I am not complaining about spending money I am an artist and you can see my art at:
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