Click images for desktop size: "Battle Rage" by Artur Sadlos The trip to the Oral Surgeon was more annoying than anything else.
My friend and I sat in the waiting room for about 15 minutes. We were five minutes early for an 8:45 appointment. I was then ushered into an examination room. My friend left to go to work.
I sat in the examination room for another 15 minutes. The doc came in and spent about 3 minutes with me. He pent thirty seconds looking at my folder and said we'll have to pull all six teeth. Just use novocaine. He'd extract some bone marrow from underneath the shattered tooth for a biopsy. Since I didn't feel any of the symptoms of leukemia he wasn't too worried about it. Bye and see me soon.
I then had to stand in the waiting room for ten more minutes while they scheduled my appointment. The chirpy appointment maker said the soonest I could get in would be April 20th. I got a bit rankled at that. Another month. She explained how incredibly busy the doc was having 4 other offices in the corporation to cover and his vacation was coming up . . . Having no reason to have any great faith in the doc I said I'd be willing to see any of the others. (Three minutes isn't even enough to form a snap judgment.)
She then found an appointment of March 31st and that will be $63.13 for today's consultation . . .
I had a friend, an ex-friend, he got too overwhelmed with money to be a friend. He was a doctor in Beverly Hills, had an address on Rodeo Dr, even if it was south of Wilshire that's still a pretty snazzy address. He had an odd practice. He had 8 examination rooms and four "nurses". He worked like 90% with insurance claims, accident victims. I gather he had a set up with a mess of Personal Injury lawyers. They'd send each other business.

Click images for desktop size: "Baretta" by Armes What he did was get these people into the exam rooms and slap a hot towel on their necks. Then he'd bill the insurance company two hundred bucks for "physical therapy". At three to five treatments a week it could get into some serious bucks.
I have no idea if he ever saw any "real" patients. If he did he never talked about them. He kept all 8 examination/treatment rooms full for 10 hours a day. He was a busy man.
I had another friend who was struggling financially getting through medical school. His wife kept him alive. A month after he got his license to practice he filed for divorce. The judge awarded his wife alimony based on the doc earning at least 3 million in his lifetime. This was based on precedent. Other judges in similar situations were awarding pretty much the same.
I can't speculate on why he divorced his wife just then. Even if I'd known him better its impossible to ever understand the thoughts, dreams and remorse of another. He was a plastic surgeon. He got an office in Century City. I figure the judge probably underestimated his income.
I'm just pretty stunned about a doc charging me sixty bucks to set up an appointment so he can charge me about a grand. Great racket.
Who knows how good a doctor is? How can you tell. Don't we really go to them and hope they stop us from hurting? At least hope they
Click images for desktop size: "Gentleman" by Lorenzo Lotto don't screw up and kill us.
When I moved from the southwest I had to go to a private doctor to get all my meds. A nurse led me in, hooked me up to a blood pressure machine, turned it on and then forgot about me. The machine kept pulsing up and down, tightening and loosening the sleeve until it beeped. I dragged it around the room and inspected the cabinets that weren't locked. After about a half hour the doctor came in. We talked for about 5 minutes. She wrote me my prescription. That was it.
When I got to the front desk I got a bill for nearly $400. The scripts were wrong. I was afraid I was going to get billed for her correcting them. I had to borrow the money to pay them.
When I went to fill the scripts I was astonished. The big chain, Ekards, wanted One hundred and twenty five bucks to fill one of the prescription. Walgreens wanted eighty.
There was a little drug store that had a sign in its window saying they were diabetic specialists.
Click images for desktop size: "Purple Dragon" by Unknown They filled the script for twenty five dollars . . . This still amazes me. The little drug store was for profit same as the big ones. It was the same generic drug, a drug I'll have to take the rest of my life. I guess they could afford to be cheaper because they didn't have the advertising budget and unsold Christmas toys and candy to pay for.
A couple of weeks later I got my appointment to get into the municipally assisted program. My doctor, who I liked immensely spent 45 minutes with me, examining me completely and compiling a solid medical history all of which he entered into the database as we talked.
This cost me twenty bucks.
I thought about this walking home. It was a lot better than thinking about loosing six teeth. Loosing them and the pain of pulling them all out in a half hour.
There's no question that getting everyone's medical records into a central database will improve the efficiency of medical care. Doctor's, who seem to have denigrated to a slovenly low right next to 21st century bankers, don't want this. They need those consultation fees.
The way things re going the AMA is going to need to be regulated. The scams doc's pull on Medicare and Medicaid are pretty legion. Several million dollars scammed by a doctor don't even make headlines anymore. When they get busted all they do is raise the fees to their existing patients.
Its become a medical business and we've become the products on the assembly line.
It sucks to be human. At least vets haven't sunk to this . . . yet.
While I was walking home I passed the postie I'd passed before on the day I'd lost the checkbook.
Click images for desktop size: "Bear" by Unknown She walked beside me and asked if I'd found my wallet.
I corrected her and told her someone had found it and returned it to the bank intact. She seemed very glad about that and then went about her route.
Small towns.

We picked up the car yesterday. The joint did a great job, so far. They did a full brake job on both rear wheels to stop the squeaking. When they replaced the bad speaker they found a bad check strap (the final defense to keep you from falling out of the car). They found one and replaced them both!
We stopped at Taco Bell, again, on the way home. I had two bean burritos and an order of fries.
Mr friend had TEN BEAN TACOS AGAIN!!
This time she ate six while we were there relaxing in formica luxury and then ate the other four when we got home!!
I hope they made her feel better. She's been killing herself working on a report for the Fed's. She thought it was done but there was a glitch somewhere. She couldn't work on it because the company's Citrux system was down. She bought the work home and found out that the Citrux system was back up but it was generating erroneous reports! It was picking up invalid numbers and dumping some valid ones!
In London once I was looking at an electric sign at the train station. The sign kept scrolling one message: "Sign Not Working".
This bugged me because the sign was obviously working. I mean, I could read it.
The station master walked by and I asked him about it. He answered, "Computers mate. Can't expect them to make sense now can you."