Bkworm wrote:Can anyone advise me of advantages and/or disadvantages with such groups. I have been going to the same PCP for about 25 years at least (I believe it is actually closer to 35 years)
I may be forced to switch docs soon myself and have been looking into them. The state of healthcare today is alarming! It's nearly impossible to find "a" doctor - it's all groups consisting of doctors, nurses, PA's and APNs. You make an appointment and it's not for an individual person, it's for "the group" and you see whichever person is on duty that day. People in the same practice can have vastly different philosophies on health care and treatments. I see it in my husband's oncology group and my sister in law saw it in her gerontology/geriatric group.
However, even though I still like her in many ways, she has started pushing for all the preventative tests. We seem to be at loggerheads.
I've been so lucky with the family practice our family has been going to for over 40 years now, starting with the grandfather and now down to a distant nephew. Only one really pushed for the testing but he retired decades ago. The docs I've had since then all asked at each visit but never pushed.
Would these other specialists push as much or would they accept my decisions for my body?
You never know ahead of time. If your city has a local Facebook group or message board you can ask there if anyone had seen those docs and what their opinions of them are. Maybe set up a "fact finding" appointment - no exam, just Q&A stuff, but you'll most likely have to pay out of pocket. Maybe his staff can answer your questions over the phone?
I have the feeling that the PCP is about to ask me to leave her care. At my last appointment, she advised she can only treat me as long as the insurance covers me and they will probably stop because I am not going for the preventative tests.
Doctors lie to scare you into doing as they demand. My current doc keeps refusing to order my thyroid and asthma meds for more than 6 months at a time, telling me both the state of NJ and our insurance won't allow yearly prescriptions. Uh, yes they do. All my husband's Rx are written for yearly, as is my brother's BP med. When I had my yearly stuff done 2 weeks ago I told him to his face I want my meds written for the year, not 6 months, that I KNOW it is legal and in fact our insurance company encourages yearly. He said OK, that's how he'll have his nurses call them in. Of course, it was once again a 3 month supply, renewable only once. When I called the office they refused to change it, saying it's doctor's orders to only give 6 month prescriptions.
Our medical insurance is through the hospital where my husband has been employed for going on 46 years.
Are you keeping that insurance when he retires? My husband was able to when he retired so when we were each eligible for Medicare we only got Part A at the time, but now with his leukemia and kidney failure journey all the docs he's dealing with encouraged him to get Part B ASAP because that would cover more than what coverage he already has. They said I should do it, too, because who knows what's going to happen in the future. Now that Part B has kicked in for both of us, our regular insurance company says Medicare is now Primary, BUT anything they don't cover his BCBS *will*.
My brother got Medicare Parts A&B when he turned 65 and also signed up for an Advantage Plan. He chose the one offered by BCBS because after doing weeks of research he saw they covered just about everything Medicare didn't. Luckily he hasn't had to use any of it yet, so we can't say for sure if they were telling the truth or not. LOL
Any guidance would be appreciated.
(sigh) All I can suggest is to ride it until it crashes but do your research now while you have the time. Ask around for doctor suggestions from anyone you can. Try the phone call to each office and ask about mandatory testing.
Florida has been horrible for doctors for decades. When we moved there for a year back in 1999 the only way we even *had* a primary care doc is because he's the brother in law of the doctor I had then (A cousin of the doc I see now). His office also gave me the hard sell and line that certain tests were mandatory above a certain age as per "state law" and I had my first mammo in maybe 25 years, and it'll be my last ever because of the damage it did to me at the time. I never saw the doctor himself the entire year, only one of the PAs. I never did have any of the other tests they wanted me to have aside from the x-ray when I hurt my back and got diagnosed with degenerative disc disease. The doctor my father had refused to take us as patients because his practice was already overbooked. One of the few things I liked about moving back to NJ was getting my old doctors back.