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Genuinely surprised so many people with mild or no symptoms even seek hospital care In Germany generally you go to your GP before being forwarded to a hospital
by Barrin92 5y ago
Genuinely surprised so many people with mild or no symptoms even seek hospital care
In Germany generally you go to your GP before being forwarded to a hospital, just walking to the emergency ward is strongly discouraged.
I've always wondered about these scenes on House where the hospital rooms are full of people with the cold, is that really common? Personally I've always really tried to avoid the hospital unless strictly necessary if only because I was kind of afraid of catching something that's worse than what I came in for.
- loudtieblahblah 5y agoit's usually b/c getting into your GP can be hard if their schedule is packed and the emergency room can't turn you away.
- rwbhn 5y agoER is also provider of choice for many people w/out insurance - for the same reason.
- TYPE_FASTER 5y agoUrgent care in the states now exists due to people going to the ER because they either don’t have coverage/a primary care physician, or getting an appointment with their PCP is months to a year out.
- taylodl 5y agoI'm going to enlighten you to the sad reality of life in the United States. Go to your GP before being forwarded to a hospital? It takes months to get an appointment with your GP. That's assuming you have insurance - the GP requires money up-front. It's going to be over $100 for the visit. Why are there so few GPs in the United States? Because that's how the medical insurance companies keep costs low. You need to maximize the doctor to patient ratio to drive down costs (which really just maximizes profits - Americans pay several hundred dollars per month for medical insurance). The emergency room? By law they have to admit you and treat you, whether you're able to pay or not. Guess what happens?
- xboxnolifes 5y agoI see this claim of months to see a GP a lot, but I feels it's doing nothing but mislead non-Americans (and maybe even other Americans) about the state of healthcare in the US. Yes, there are a lot of issues that I could talk about, but I have never in my life had to wait months for a GP visit outside of scheduling a new routine checkup with a new doctor. Any time I have been sick, or people I know who have been sick, a GP appointment has never been more than 2 weeks out. usually within the current week or start of next. Yes, two weeks is seriously not good if you potentially getting really sick but not sick enough for ER, but it's not months.
- JohnTHaller 5y agoHaving to wait a month for a PCP or specialist appointment isn't that unusual in the US. It varies drastically based on what insurance plan you're on. My family member was booking their PCP 6 weeks out. My girlfriend's breast surgeon followup post cancer appointment was cancelled when her PCP's office didn't get the referral in in time and the next appointment was in Feb 2022. Fun fact side note: A brain MRI w/ and w/o contrast in NYC has a retail price of $6,700.