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Specialists are called that for a reason. They are not general practitioners and their time is extremely valuable. Access to them needs to be managed so that th

Specialists are called that for a reason. They are not general practitioners and their time is extremely valuable. Access to them needs to be managed so that they do not waste their time on people who do not need their specialty. The way it's supposed to work is that the general practitioner rules out a bunch of stuff, and then starts referring to specialists who can diagnose/treat the rare things. In practice it's not quite perfect, but it's hard for me to think of a better way to deal with it.

treeman79 4y ago
I probably cost insurance company 300-500,000 while figuring out what was wrong with me. A full round of blood tests by a few specialist would’ve saved everyone involved a lot of money. Wasn’t even a super rare thing. Just 2 somewhat common conditions. One of which is known for being dismissed as anxiety.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  For the life of me I do not understand why they just do not throw a bunch of tests at people with chronic conditions. They all say they do not know what is wrong with us bu they never do any testing, and the outcome is the same every time; patients suffer and costs are higher.
  - throwawayboise 4y ago
    Many tests are not 100% accurate, nor do they necessarily pinpoint the problem (often they just rule something out). There's no magic doctor who would be a flawless diagnostician if he just had more time to spend with the patient and less interference by the insurance companies. And if he did spend hours and hours on your case, and run all the tests, that would be hours he's not spending helping other people and delays in other people's labwork. Medicine is imperfect, and diagnosis is based in large part on probabilities. Doctors do what their education and experience tells the is most likely to help. Sometimes they are wrong, because people are different, and some doctors aren't as good as others. Sorry your chronic condition was misdiagnosed. It sucks. There's no magic answer.
    - treeman79 4y ago
      I had one that was abnormal. They kept telling me to ignore. I had to push really hard for the follow up test. That one was abnormal. I was still told to ignore it. More pushing. The next obvious test to run was negative. Did a bunch of research and found out there was another related condition. I had every symptom. Pushed really hard. Tons of positive tests for that one. They still told me ignore results. A hard fight later I started treatment. Dramatic and immediate health improvement. Some of my doctors still refuse to believe I have condition. Process Took 3 years. The average time for diagnosis is 7 years. Had about 30 doctors during this time frame. Not even a rare condition.
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
> The way it's supposed to work is that the general practitioner rules out a bunch of stuff, and then starts referring to specialists who can diagnose/treat the rare things. You missed a whole bunch in that progression. You forgot the insurance companies for one thing. And you are wrong about the diagnosis process for Lupus. My Primary Care gave me the worst test for diagnosis ANA levels for Lupus. It came up negative. Therefore, I could not see a rheumatologist even though I had documented (MRI) spinal arthritis, kidney problems, and all the other symptoms. When I found out it was a bad test I demanded they did the correct one it came up positive. So you see, when they do not know what is going on, the give up. They do not dig deeper. The process is a failure for people with chronic illnesses. The better way to deal with it is to have fewer specialist, get rid of insurance companies, and just have more doctors that can spend more time with their patients and learn more in the process. Primary care doctors need to know more and investigate more. And the only reason specialists time is extremely valuable is because they make sure there are not a lot of them.

treeman79 4y ago

I probably cost insurance company 300-500,000 while figuring out what was wrong with me. A full round of blood tests by a few specialist would’ve saved everyone involved a lot of money. Wasn’t even a super rare thing. Just 2 somewhat common conditions. One of which is known for being dismissed as anxiety.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago
For the life of me I do not understand why they just do not throw a bunch of tests at people with chronic conditions. They all say they do not know what is wrong with us bu they never do any testing, and the outcome is the same every time; patients suffer and costs are higher.
- throwawayboise 4y ago
  Many tests are not 100% accurate, nor do they necessarily pinpoint the problem (often they just rule something out). There's no magic doctor who would be a flawless diagnostician if he just had more time to spend with the patient and less interference by the insurance companies. And if he did spend hours and hours on your case, and run all the tests, that would be hours he's not spending helping other people and delays in other people's labwork. Medicine is imperfect, and diagnosis is based in large part on probabilities. Doctors do what their education and experience tells the is most likely to help. Sometimes they are wrong, because people are different, and some doctors aren't as good as others. Sorry your chronic condition was misdiagnosed. It sucks. There's no magic answer.
  - treeman79 4y ago
    I had one that was abnormal. They kept telling me to ignore. I had to push really hard for the follow up test. That one was abnormal. I was still told to ignore it. More pushing. The next obvious test to run was negative. Did a bunch of research and found out there was another related condition. I had every symptom. Pushed really hard. Tons of positive tests for that one. They still told me ignore results. A hard fight later I started treatment. Dramatic and immediate health improvement. Some of my doctors still refuse to believe I have condition. Process Took 3 years. The average time for diagnosis is 7 years. Had about 30 doctors during this time frame. Not even a rare condition.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

> The way it's supposed to work is that the general practitioner rules out a bunch of stuff, and then starts referring to specialists who can diagnose/treat the rare things. You missed a whole bunch in that progression. You forgot the insurance companies for one thing. And you are wrong about the diagnosis process for Lupus. My Primary Care gave me the worst test for diagnosis ANA levels for Lupus. It came up negative. Therefore, I could not see a rheumatologist even though I had documented (MRI) spinal arthritis, kidney problems, and all the other symptoms. When I found out it was a bad test I demanded they did the correct one it came up positive. So you see, when they do not know what is going on, the give up. They do not dig deeper. The process is a failure for people with chronic illnesses. The better way to deal with it is to have fewer specialist, get rid of insurance companies, and just have more doctors that can spend more time with their patients and learn more in the process. Primary care doctors need to know more and investigate more. And the only reason specialists time is extremely valuable is because they make sure there are not a lot of them.