Medicine, as it’s practiced today, is an industry. To call it healthcare would be a misnomer, since there’s no care involved. Compassion is as quaintly obsolete as Pong.
I have Graves’ disease. While that sounds dire, I assure you it’s not. It’s a hyperactive thyroid, nothing more. I take a pill every day. Or did until I ran out. My fine doctor, an endocrinologist, refuses to renew the prescription until I submit to yet another blood test ($166) and appear for an office visit ($216). This could be a money grab or could be an ego thing; I am a difficult patient, meaning I’m not awed by their stupendous greatness.
Stunts like this post won’t win me any friends, either. Noses will get out of joint and offense taken. Boo hoo, blame it on my newly unleashed thyroid activity.
I’ve been on the same medication, at the same dosage, for more than three years. My ‘condition’ is stable. I had a blood test and the mandatory office visit in April, a short six months ago. Why do I need such close monitoring? Well, she wants to keep her license. Balls. The American Medical Association, rapacious as they are, doesn’t demand an airtight number of office visits. Perhaps her banker does.
She can make a case for the blood test, sure. It’s better to be safe than sorry, I get that, and things can turn ugly fast. So fine. Wouldn’t the blood test satisfy any questions. Oh, no. No, no. I need to be seen, in person, in her office. For four minutes (at a rate of $54 
/ min.) so she can grope my neck and ask insipid questions such as do you have any pain?
I can’t afford the cost and I don’t like being bullied. I spoke with an urgent care provider, a doc-in-the-box, but they don’t prescribe routine medications. Not even with a blood test. I called a nurse hotline, bupkis, no joy there. Their keen recommendation? The ER. And that, boys and girls, is why we need our modern medical professionals — we wouldn’t have spotted a $2,000 expense as a practical option to a $400 outlay.
So, in the end, I have no medication and no hope of getting a prescription. The irony is I could score some cocaine, or maybe a little Vicodin, in a flash. But can’t for the life of me lay my hands on Levothyroxine.
Ergo, my thyroid runs amok, erasing all the slow, hard progress of the last three years. For that and so much more I’d like to thank the medical professionals for creating their vast, unresponsive system of bureaucratic indifference. Job well done.
Clearly, that ‘do no harm’ business in the Hippocratic oath is passé, too. Kind of like Hippocrates, himself.
copyright © 2015 publikworks
the whirly girl 
12 responses to “: a free-range thyroid :”
While our conditions are different, we are in similar positions. I see a neurologist more frequently than I see my GP. I have epilepsy, have had it since I was shot and then in a coma. They don’t know if it was due to the stroke I suffered on the operating table or something else, but there you have it just one of the wonderful outcomes of that fabulous day. Unfortunately, I cannot go without my medication so I see my specialist 4 times a year like clockwork. Before the ACA, those visits, the annual MRI and my meds were staggering. Now, not so much.
I feel you though. I do. But, despite the ego involved (doctor), I will just say to you go to the doctor and get your meds. Can’t really fight the system, except at a cost to yourself in health. The rest, work it out with them.
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Good god, I’m sorry. So, so sorry. You’ve obviously made tremendous progress; the fact you survived is nothing short of amazing. Whoa, you’re one courageous woman! And you’re right, ‘azzhats with guns’ are terrifying.
My little problem is inconsequential by comparison. However, it’s the kind of fight I can’t resist: a windmill to tilt against. Any doctor who’d leave a patient stranded without medicine is not someone I want to depend on. I’ll find another way. I went to school with a couple guys who are doctors, I can try one of them as a last resort. See if they’d be willing to take me on. They know me, though, so the odds aren’t in my favor :o(
Take care of yourself. No more azzhats.
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Your ‘little’ problem is not little. It affects your health and should be dealt with. I agree your medical provider should not be holding your prescription for ransom, on the other hand you should not be tilting at windmills with your health,
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It gives me something to do while I wait for $400 to fall from the sky. I’m trying my best to get this resolved.
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$216 for a visit? What the? Where do you live? ‘Cause there’s no way I’ll move there. Ever.
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She’s a specialist, you know. They’re more highly trained than your run-of-the-mill physician. They can only command somewhere in the $120 to $150 ballpark :o/
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Wouldn’t it be great if nature allowed us to bypass the medical industry all together by there being some way for hyperthyroid people to donate excess thyroid hormone to people dealing with hypothyroidism?
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Okay, you’re a genius. Have you considered medical school or maybe a homeopathic consultancy? What a great thought :o)
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A devastating indictment, my thoughts are with you. Over in the UK this stuff is free … but you often have to wait a long time for treatment.
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I’m more cheesed than anything. The brain fog had finally, finally cleared, now it’s back to fumbling for lucidity. I hate that.
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I feel your pain and anger and couldn’t have said it better myself. Patient care has gotten worse. I long for the days of the doctor who came to your house, sat and talked with you, understood your symptoms and could actually diagnose. Now when you clearly have an issue, if it doesn’t show up in a blood test or scan, they tell you they can’t find anything. Huh? Or its IBS. Everybody I know has IBS.
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They can’t find the cause and they’re wrong half the time. I think I prefer google to traditional diagnostics. Like you, I miss plain, old personable doctors who knew what they were talking about.
They’ve been replaced by a preposterous maze of inefficiency, albeit an incredibly profitable one. I adore my ophtalmologist, though — if only he was a general practitioner.
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