My Doctor Is Out Of Business

[Guest FourAces]

Two days ago I received a call from my doctors office asking if I received their letter. I explained I had not. The woman informed me that the doctor was closing his practice as of the end of month. I asked when the letter was mailed and she said a week ago.

So I would have hadone weeks notice that my doctor was closing shop, weird.

And even stranger I wonder why. He had a busy practice is pobably mid-fifties was voted Doctor of the Year a few years back here in town ... the office staff said he was changing career paths.

He did have a referral but that doctor isn't board certified Internal Medicine and thats important to me.

So now I'm doctor shopping .. what a drag.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Good luck Four Aces...

[Guest EXPAT]

What is odd is that I didn't get a regular doctor until 5 years ago. I moved so often that I never saw the same one twice. But now I have regular ones since I'm much more close to home these days. But good doctors these days are very hard to find. They are getting eaten up by insurance processes and procedures and declining co-pays and they won't see you for very long so they can squeeze as many patients in as possible. It's all very sad how that industry is going. You really have to manage your personal care for directly and sternly or you will not get the care you need. It's a very sad state of affairs if you ask me.

[RA1]

Just wait until Obamacare kicks fully in if you think docs are hard to find now. Of course, it isn't that simple, medical schools have limited enrollment for years, but the new law will have the biggest impact of anything I think ever, but certainly in decades.

My family doc died about a year and a half ago. He was also my FAA medical examiner so I actually had to find two docs unless I had been lucky enough to find another who could and would be both. The "conventional" advice is to not have one doc wear both hats but I had a lot of confidence in the one I had. If I could contact him, I would fuss at him for up and dying on me.

As mentioned by Expat there are a plethora of reasons why the doc won't take you or you might not be satisfied with him or her. However and regardless, I think it is critical that one be highly involved with one's medical care. One cannot know too much and you are the #1 beneficiary and recipient of whatever happens.

Best regards,

RA1

[Guest CharliePS]

I had the same dentist for eight years, and I liked him a lot. A few months ago I went in for the scheduled start of an expensive procedure, and the receptionist told me that the dentist had suddenly retired two days earlier, and I would be taken care of by someone else. Luckily it worked out well, but as someone who chooses his medical caregivers fairly carefully, I was quite uncomfortable.

I used to have a network of dependable advisors to help me find good doctors, but it has become something of a hit-and-miss situation in recent years, and I suspect it will get worse as fewer young people are willing to get into a profession which gets more and more daunting to practice.

[Guest FourAces]

but as someone who chooses his medical caregivers fairly carefully, I was quite uncomfortable.

I am obsessed with my doctors background. I check education and residency and any complaints and so on. Its just such a haddle to go through all that again.

[BigK]

Two days ago I received a call from my doctors office asking if I received their letter. I explained I had not. The woman informed me that the doctor was closing his practice as of the end of month. I asked when the letter was mailed and she said a week ago.

So I would have hadone weeks notice that my doctor was closing shop, weird.

And even stranger I wonder why. He had a busy practice is pobably mid-fifties was voted Doctor of the Year a few years back here in town ... the office staff said he was changing career paths.

He did have a referral but that doctor isn't board certified Internal Medicine and thats important to me.

So now I'm doctor shopping .. what a drag.

What did you do FourAces to wear your Doctor out????

[JKane]

Just wait until Obamacare kicks fully in if you think docs are hard to find now. Of course, it isn't that simple, medical schools have limited enrollment for years, but the new law will have the biggest impact of anything I think ever, but certainly in decades.

Everybody will be required to buy into the same level of crappy for-profit HMO-type BS insurance many/most have now. Other than simple scarcity I don't see how it changes much...

Except that I will finally be able to get decent non-cobra individual insurance. And that if I get badly sick the insurance company won't be able to cap me or find some reason to drop me. It *will be nice* to have an alternative to being driven into medical bankruptcy, anyway.

Forcing the insurance companies to re-invest at least 80% into patient care may help a little, but at heart it's still going to be the same BS where the "death panels" *do exist* and are a panel of the insurance companies' MBAs and actuaries--exactly as now. But *somehow* that's better than doctors, scientists, civilian and gov't representatives making those same decisions in a *transparent* manner... at least according to the expert opinion of Sarah Palin and the like...

Sounds like we agree wholeheartedly that it doesn't do nearly enough!

Medicare devotes something like 95% of it's money to patient care (even with much over-hyped fraud), my solution is to make it available to everybody at 20% over cost (over a certain percentage above poverty, reduced below that), allowing private industry a huge margin to *do it better* in! And it's funny, for almost every single person who disparages Medicare somehow it's still good enough for their own parents!

[JKane]

And even stranger I wonder why. He had a busy practice is pobably mid-fifties was voted Doctor of the Year a few years back here in town ... the office staff said he was changing career paths.

...

So now I'm doctor shopping .. what a drag.

I had a doctor pull something similar on me several years ago. Got a vague letter about her closing up shop, referrals, etc. Though I do think she gave more notice than yours! Never knew the reason or any details.

But we have to remember they're people with lives. Could've been anything. Family moving, wanted to volunteer oversees, had to care for a sick relative, etc...

Odd thing was she was back in town about a year or so later, so I just started going again like nothing happened.

Good luck though. So far my preference is to find a place that functions as a group--the HMO BS where it would take a week or more to see the gatekeeper then a couple weeks to see the referred specialist really pissed me off! But paying extra for PPO and going to a medical group of co-operating doctors where I could walk in anytime worked *a lot better*. And with PPO no gatekeeping general practitioner, need a specialist you make a appt. and go!

[Guest CharliePS]

I had a doctor pull something similar on me several years ago. Got a vague letter about her closing up shop, referrals, etc. Though I do think she gave more notice than yours! Never knew the reason or any details.

But we have to remember they're people with lives. Could've been anything. Family moving, wanted to volunteer oversees, had to care for a sick relative, etc...

Odd thing was she was back in town about a year or so later, so I just started going again like nothing happened.

I got a form letter once from my gp, an attractive middle-aged gay man, saying simply that he had decided to retire immediately. A friend who was also one of his patients told me that he had married a very wealthy woman, whose condition for the marriage was that he stop working and break off all relationships with gay acquaintances.

My partner's cardiologist suddenly closed his practice and left town with no explanation, then like your doctor, just as unexpectedly reappeared and opened a new practice. Although my partner had liked him very much, he didn't go back to him, because he was afraid he might again just disappear, when he really needed him.