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PSA: Call Your Doctor
Nov. 19th, 2009 08:59 amIf you haven't seen your doctor in the past year, call them and set up an appointment for a physical. Yes, now.
I have heard from three people on my f-list in the past day or two who've discovered, when they called because they were sick and really needed to see someone now, that their doctors were no longer there. Another friend had major delays in figuring out that his debilitating symptoms were encephalitis because he hadn't visited his doctor in three years and their office policy made him a new patient and his doctor wasn't accepting new patients. And you all know about my good friend who hadn't seen a doctor in long enough that his untreated hypertension caused a major stroke before forty. Finding a new PCP takes time--especially with the recent changes in Massachusetts healthcare, it can take months to get a new-patient appointment.
Yes, we're all busy. Yes, we don't particularly like going to the doctor. But we are, each of us, getting older every day. Even if you're perfectly healthy now, having an annual baseline is very useful. And having a doctor to go to when you're sick can be very, very important. Make an appointment, keep the appointment, and when you're there, make another one for next year.
I have heard from three people on my f-list in the past day or two who've discovered, when they called because they were sick and really needed to see someone now, that their doctors were no longer there. Another friend had major delays in figuring out that his debilitating symptoms were encephalitis because he hadn't visited his doctor in three years and their office policy made him a new patient and his doctor wasn't accepting new patients. And you all know about my good friend who hadn't seen a doctor in long enough that his untreated hypertension caused a major stroke before forty. Finding a new PCP takes time--especially with the recent changes in Massachusetts healthcare, it can take months to get a new-patient appointment.
Yes, we're all busy. Yes, we don't particularly like going to the doctor. But we are, each of us, getting older every day. Even if you're perfectly healthy now, having an annual baseline is very useful. And having a doctor to go to when you're sick can be very, very important. Make an appointment, keep the appointment, and when you're there, make another one for next year.
