doctor appointments

[Son of Clyde]

How does one explain how US doctors work (especially specialists)?
My wife thinks I can just pick up the phone and make an appointment for whatever time and day she chooses.

In Ukraine, doctors do not move from room to room, all ther time is devoted to one patient at that specific time. My wife will never understand how our doctors can get away with spending so little time with each patient. Here it is quite different from Eastern Europe. After all this time she still hates to wait and believes I can schedule any appointment time she has in mind.
 
Have any of you experienced this?

[catzenmouse]

Oh yeah. I still can't get her to go see a doctor for anything. I just accept that there are no good doctors here and let it go at that.

Ken

[calcowboy1]

Just as an alternative post, my wife has no issues with the whole doctor appointments stuff.  I explained everything to her, and she said that is normal in Russia as well (as long as you want to see the good doctors). 

Maybe the Ukraine is different, however, the hospital which my wife's sister works in, is no where near the "doctor devotes their time to one patient" concept.  They bounce around like doctors here in Canada. 

[RussianGal]

It took me awhile to accept how the whole doctor-patient relationship works here.
 I also was unhappy about having to go to the therapyst for a referral in order to see, say, endocrinologyst. But then, well, I got used to it. If you can`t change the way things are, you might be better off to adjust instead.

[Jet]

Lil had some problems with doctors here, but she's getting used to it. On our honeymoon she couldn't believe the doctor would actually prescibe a medicine based on the symptoms she decribed rather than running her through a battery of tests "to be sure"
(OTOH I was thrilled as it was an out-of-pocket visit and 2 days later she was cured using the aintbiotics he gave her)

She still gets irritated with the whole "he can't see you until your regular doctors sends us a referal form" when dealing with a specialist.
(ironicly in this case SHE knew what was wrong,  and was pissed that they would NOT take her word for it)

I think Ken's advice may serve you best in this situation "Yes dear you're right (you're always right  )"

[KenC]

We have had 3 different doctors in the last 7 years since Lena came.  I had a great doc in MI and Lena loved him too.  Very thourough and very professional.  It had taken me years to find him before she came. He really did take his time with the patients.

When we relocated to CA, I found a decent doc, but Lena didn't care for him much. He was a rush rush guy and really didn't spend much time with his patients.  We switched to a female doctor and at first it didn't seem much better.  Lena constantly complained about her too.  The one thing I realise is that I demand my doctors full attention by asking questions and expecting a full explanation of things.  This is an area where even the slightest language challange puts your RW at a huge disadvantage.

A few weeks ago, we had a terrible incident.  Our doctors idiot assistant called Lena with results from a recent blood test and told her (in Lena's words) that she had cancer!  After some very anxious moments with the assistant and then the doctor it was of course a false alarm.  The certain test result showed in the high range of a certain reading and there was a remote possibility of cancer causing such a result.  It is needless to say that I crucified the assistant for her casual handling of such an important matter.  I still don't know for sure if there was a language gap that may have caused the whole thing.  But interesting enough, there was some good that came out of the incident.  Lena realised that the doctor was taking some very detailed tests that showed the true state of her health, not just some superficial checks that would show little or nothing,  She came to understand the difference between Russian and American doctors.  Even though the Russian doctors would spend more personal time and have a better bedside manner with their patients, they were not able to offer the latest in technology as the average American doctor.  When offered the choice of "good" or "nice" medical treatment, we will choose "good" every time.
KenC

[dostogirl]

She still gets irritated with the whole "he can't see you until your regular doctors sends us a referal form" when dealing with a specialist.

As I understand, it depends on the type of medical insurance you have. My insurance is POS, I don't need any referrals to see specialists.
I think there's no other way for a RW but to accept that in the medical system in the uS is different.