So sorry to hear about your frustrating and expensive trip to the ER. As a primary care physician it is always so frustrating to read these kinds of accounts. Unfortunately, there are all too common. The health care insurance industry in the US has got to be one of the most opaque and corrupt in the world. Apart from that, we equate health insurance to other kinds of insurance like home or auto. Like cars, the human body needs regular maintenance. But our car insurance doesn’t pay for oil changes, new tires, regular maintenance. We expect our health insurance to do that. We expect to get something in return for the ridiculous high amounts that we pay in premiums, max out of pockets, deductibles. Insurance works for cars to cover catastrophic events like accidents. But would never work for regular maintenance. Health insurance is the same. The dollars and cents just don’t add up especially when you add on the insanely bloated system of administrators and regulatory oversight. What happened to the good ole fashioned patient-doctor relationship? There is actually a movement afoot to remedy this. Patients and doctors taking back the relationship. Not waiting for government to figure something out. I would highly recommend looking into direct primary care or even concierge medicine. There are a few practices (and more coming up each year) around Utah. I’m a part of one of them so unashamedly biased 😉

In the case of your son, under our practice, a physician would have come right to your home and done much of the same work up as was done in the ED. Portable ultrasound and in home blood draws for testing. May have very well been able to diagnose the issue there without further ado and prescribed the necessary medication for treatment. It’s the kind of one on one relationship that is missing in our modern health care model in the US.

S. Rowland, M.D. - PrivateCare2