Medicare
For those readers who are not close to being entitled to Medicare, this posting may not mean that much to you but for those who are close and, more specifically, for me it is a big issue.
My entitlement started in May of this year and my first experience of the change between being part of a company’s HMO and Medicare was when I had to have a thallium treadmill test; instead of being tested at the hospital, the test was done in the cardiologist’s office.
Yesterday, I had concerns that I was having heart problems again but could not conclude if it was heart or pulmonary; so I headed to my primary care doctor who did a review and then called my cardiologist who, in turn, asked that I go to his office.
Usually, with the symptoms I had, I would have gone directly to emergency but, for reasons unknown and as mentioned, I went to my primary care doctor first. In addition and based on prior experience, my primary doctor would have done an EKG and would have sent me directly to emergency. This time, the EKG was done in the cardiologist and blood work was done at the lab which could have been any lab but it was done at the hospital lab to expedite the results.
Apart from what I call an awareness of a lesser quality of service, a remark was made that I had learned the system. This left me with the feeling that the medical profession was being forced by cost parameters from Medicare to provide basic care without going that extra step.
This obviously concerns me if I have to go through another open heart surgery.
