the doctor visit.

[pilvikki]

normally the evening appointments are dealt with fairly quickly, but last night was a doozy!
one time I had an early, 6 pm, appointment and showed up early. I was out before my allotted time, so I thought i'd try it again.

to my absolute horror I saw 5 cars in the parking lot. what.....?

oh well, nothing to it, I pulled up next to the doctor's very dusty car in my newly washed wheels. (saxon: "why did you not just let the machine wash it?" "cheaper to do it yourself." "but, you're wasting water you have to pay for!" honestly, that kid...)

to my surprise I see the doctor sitting in his car.

we get out and he says "you're early!" we discuss my shiny car and he goes in. I unload the kids, follow him. "bon soir."

he's standing in the waiting room. ??? the door to his office is closed. ???

eventually he goes into his office and after a while a guy leaves. ??? "bon soir." a choir of bon soirs follows him out.

doc calls in the first patient.

it's an old guy and it takes a while. ditto with the second. the next customer leaves to another chorus of "bon soirs" - and the doc follows him out. ???

he comes back in, calls the next one, while profusely apologizing for the lateness.

the kids play tic-tac-toe and are perfect angels.

I study the lady next to me. she's elderly, with dark, very red hair, impeccably dressed, keeps digging in her prada bag, which looks like it also has had a rough life. she says nothing apart from the compulsory greetings. she looks resigned.

finally it's our turn.

I give the doctor my notes, with the google s c translation. the doctor cracks up! "this, this translation!!!!" yep, I know, that's why I gave him both the English and the French versions.

ok, he tells squeaki to hop up onto the table. but the phone rings, so he answers. he hangs up, but now someone is knocking on the window. "come in!" I call and the doc is shaking his head, goes to get an envelope proffered.

back to squeaki and her throat. she gets poked and prodded, declared ok for the throat issue..

the phone rings. he writes down an appointment.

when he's done with squeaki's paperwork and explained what needs to be done about her headaches, it's my turn. let's start with the b/p....

someone's knocking on the window.

he leaves me sitting with his cuff, goes to see what this is about now. he then gets a bunch of paperwork, stamps it, hands it to the guy, comes back and...

the phone rings.

"i think i'm going crazy... no, I think i'm already there..."



but, he's worth the hassle...

[Icey]

LOOOL!! Well it sounds very different from our set-ups. Most people get a cursory 10 minutes with the doctor if they're lucky. One of them's writing a prescription out before you've sat down!! Today, it was me who held the show up.

There was just me and one other woman in the waiting room when I first arrived. We'd both arrived early, especially this person, who went in after me. I explained to the doctor that after having my leg scanned yesterday, they found I had a cyst behind the knee. The notes from hospital weren't through, so the doctor examined me and then said "Oh yes. The basic information's here, look ..." and turned her monitor towards me - then back again before I had time to digest the info! I was told that I have a Baker's cyst, which made me smile, but no, the doctor wanted to ask about umpteen other things, which was very kind of her to spend so much time with me, but meanwhile, the waiting room was filling up. Ah well. I got 2 prescriptions, some paperwork about cysts, an appointment paper to have my blood pressure taken in a few days time, and some advice about something else. Twenty minutes or so later, I could go. Just one person said goodbye, and I gratefully hobbled to the car. The only time we might get interrupted is if a phone call goes through to the doctors, and you can tell that they're not pleased when they have a patient with them already.

[Kellemora]

Sounds like things work a whole lot differently over here.
When we go to the doctors office, we go straight to the nurses station, to get a clipboard with papers to fill out and sign, removing all responsibility from the doctor, the company, the plumber who installed the faucets, and the carpet people.
We turn in the paperwork, give them our insurance cards and an ID for them to make the 1,021st copy of for their files. Then we go to the waiting room to wait for our turn.
Now, if your appointment was for 10:30am, a nurse will call you into an examining room around 11:30 to noon. After about 15 minutes, another nurse will come in and weigh you, take your temperature, check your blood pressure, ask you 500,000 questions as she fills out another form. She will leave after saying the doctor will be with you shortly.
If you stand up on the examining table when you first come in, you can see out the window, and catch a glimpse of the doctor leaving for lunch. To make sure you are not getting into any mischief, a nurse will pop her head in the door, always claiming to be looking to make sure everything the doc needs is on the counter for him.
You hear a car door slam and glance up at the clock, 1pm, must be the doc getting back from lunch.
A few minutes later, he sticks his head in the door, says Hi, how are WE doing today. Looks at your chart, listens to your heart and lungs, then ducks back out the door saying a nurse will be right in. The nurse comes in, hands you cup and tells you to go to the lavatory and put the sample in the little window box between the lab and the lavatory. You go back to your examining room and wait, relieve you finally had a chance to make your bladder gladder.
Another nurse comes in and hands you a paper, says you are done, but you have to visit the Vampire on the way out. This is another half hour wait to get punctured several times and your hydraulic fluid drained. In this injured and weakened state, they send you to the nurses station at the opposite end of the building, which is their billing department, so you can pay your co-pay, find out when you have to come back again, set the appointment for same. Then back to the front of the building so you can pass through the waiting room to the exit. Ahh, finally free, 3pm, no wonder I'm starved!
You grab a bite of fast food on the way to the pharmacy where the doc called your prescriptions and refills into an hour earlier. Here you sit and wait because they don't have it ready yet, will be another hour. They always do this so you will roam around their store shopping for something you don't need. It doesn't matter if they got your script yesterday or last week, you still have to wait an hour to pick it up. Then they ALWAYS say this, this and this is not covered by your insurance, so the bill will be $895.63. Say what? What can we put back? You put back everything new the doctor prescribed and your bill drops to $24.00. At your next visit to the doc, you tell him to select drugs from your Formulary which are Tier Two or below. He can't find any of course, because your insurance carrier only has sugar cubes and placebo's as Tier One and Two, or they don't cover it at all.
On the way home, you stop at the street corner and speak to the guy wearing the hood and arm bands. Doc says I need this, this and this, you happen to have any? Yeah, but it will cost you. Are they fresh? Yeah, see here, dates on the label. This one says Mrs. Emory, you didn't steal it did you, ha ha ha... No, she passed away last week, you know I don't sell anything bad or old. How much you asking for what's left in Mrs. Emory's bottle? Two fins, no dickering. You got it, here ya go! What about this script. I have lots of that one, let you have a full bottle for a fiver. Sold, and this one. Oh, that's a hard one to find. Don't have it right now, but check back tomorrow after dinner, if it's not raining. I'll see what I can do. OK, thanks.
Forty Five Bucks later and I have the two bottles of pills the pharmacy wanted 600 bucks for. Shame about poor old Mrs. Emory though, she was a cool gal in her day. Next evening I stop at the corner. Here, got those pills you needed, but they'll cost you big this time. Um, how big. One crisp, Ouch, that's robbery. The pharmacy gets three crisp, you want them or not? Yeah, since you went to all the trouble to get them for me, Here. Why you scratch the name off the label? It came that way, some of my suppliers sell scripts they don't need, but can still get easy enough. You don't want me to disclose my sources do you, I would be out of business. Not as long as you undersell the pharmacies by 75% you won't. See you next time the doc loads me down. I never did thank you for the box you dropped by a few months ago. Almost forgot, here, take a fin back. Thanks, nice doin' business with ya.
I get home and check the pills against the pill catalog. All are as expected. Pictures and stamped numbers on the pills all match properly. Thank goodness for our street corner vendors, but you got to get to know them first, hi hi.

[Icey]

Oh my goodness! LOOOOOL!!!!! Are you kidding???? And aren't you taking a huge risk buying drugs in that way? Good heavens Gary. I don't really know what to say - so you made me laugh out loud!

Only our large pharmacies keep a stock of all the prescription drugs. The smaller places often have to order them in - as they did for me today, although it wasn't any actual medication I went in for. I have this swollen knee, so have to wear a support stocking round it for a while. These used to be issued on prescription, but no longer are, probably because unless you buy the big pharmacy's own brand, then the only alternative's Scholl, which're even more expensive than the own brands - but better - so at a hefty cost of around nearly $17 ... I ordered one.

[Kellemora]

Back home, we had two relatives who owned drug stores, not part of any chain. In later years, the smaller one finally did become part of the Rexall chain, but only because of his suppliers.

Do to his location, Jim had the larger store to serve more clients, and also had better deals with his suppliers. He always had what you needed, and it was always fresh too. The suppliers he used maintained an inventory of certain drugs in each of the stores they serviced, which pharmacies would not normally stock. Sales on some of them were so low, they would expire before the stock ran out and had to be thrown away.

Having the less sold drugs available when needed gave an edge over the other pharmacies.
Pharmacies who stocked their own shelves had to buy everything they stocked, and dump what items expired.
Those stocked by suppliers only paid for what they sold, so the suppliers kept the shelves stocked and removed anything close to expiration. This does not mean they stocked the store for free, hi hi... The store paid for the initial inventory, and had keep shelves full contracts.

Much easier today with computers monitoring every sale and adding sold items to the reorder inventory lists.
In the old days before computers, I would see the suppliers roaming around the shelves with clipboards, marking which things they needed to bring in from their trucks. Time consuming and several back and forth trips were involved.
Today, they just come in the door with a big blue box with everything lined up in the box in the same order they go on the shelves. They only make a manual note when a shelf is one or two less than the inventory sheet showed should be there.

As well stocked as Jim's store was, he never did any custom formulations. When someone needed a blended formula, he got it from one of the smaller area pharmacies, or sent his customer to them. It helped them out a bit and saved a major expense for the way his store operated. That being said, I've not heard of any pharmacy filling special blends now in years. Except for items set-up for that purpose using specific pre-prepared ingredients.

The way some pharmacies do things has always amazed me to no end. They often create a lot of extra unneeded work and expense for themselves. One of the pills I'm on, if I get them from pharmacy A, they come in the manufacturers own packaging, with the pharmacies label glued to it. If I go to pharmacy B, they take the pills out of the manufacturers bottle, dump them in their own bottle, usually larger, and stick their label on the bottle.
It would make sense only if they were buying in bulk, but they were not. To me, going through the labor of moving the pills from one bottle they throw away, to a new bottle they had to buy, takes extra work and makes no sense.

Now, some of the pills I get come carded in these dang cardboard boxes with each pill in its own bubble slot in a foil backed sheet of plastic. I hate pills packaged that way! It seems more and more are coming packaged that way too. And you know, packaging costs are often more than the product in the package. But with the 10,000% or higher markup pharmacies add, it probably is minimal to them, hi hi...

[Icey]

You're right, and I hate those bubble packs as well, although I assume that it's probably for ease of use, for one thing. A person can keep tabs (no pun intended) on how many they remove from the packs at a time, which helps if they don't possess a pill dispenser, and some packs have the days stamped on them anyway, but I had some recently which were a pain to get into! If you pressed the back, the foil'd either bulge out and not open, or only halfway. The pesky things got stuck, and even with a bang on the underside, wouldn't pop out. : (

As for our pharmacies, well obviously most medication can be got from them. It's only Class A drugs which have to be picked up directly from the hospital pharmacies and signed for, but the system, despite all being computerised, is incredibly slow. You can sometimes see into the back of the pharmacy and see what you need on their shelves, but instead of just packaging something up for you and clicking onto their keypads to say that you've collected it, there's either a waiting time or you go back another day.

I think some of the trouble stems from the computers themselves. The hospital ones're particularly slow at bringing up the required page - sometimes, literally, 30 seconds before the required info shows. Then they click again and again, and leave patients standing there, hopping from foot to foot until finally, details can be entered.

I'd overhaul the entire system if I was in charge, but I think this's a nationwide thing, and the systems all work on the same principles. Slow.

[pilvikki]

such a difference here...

first off, the doc is his own secretary. seeing it was 7.30 at night, I was to call for a specialist appointment for squeaki the next day, but if I had a problem, to ring him and he'll make the appointment.

so I asked fred to call when she was in, but the doctor requested is sick. means, i'll have to call the doctor back.

the drugs. you wait 5 mins while they collect and enter them into the computer. they then hand you back your prescription, stamped and dated, plus an ins form. there are no names or instructions on the boxes, which, also ALL are those blister packs.

the pharmacists' charges; here's a sample:

allopurinol 100m, merck - dispensing .82 cents - cost 1.12 eoros
olmetec 40 mg " - disp. 2.12 - 54.18 for 3 months.

etc.

[Icey]

Just shows you how things differ from place to place. Our prescriptions cost £8. 20p each. That's 11. 33 euros, or $12. These come free for people under or over a certain age or if they claim certain benefits, but the system's still pretty snail pace.

[Kellemora]

If you press the tab real hard, and jerk the plastic blister packet out of the box completely, they are a little easier to deal with. Since you press the pills out from the front, having the days on the back are sorta meaningless. I knock them out along the narrow width because it is easier, my hand fits around the narrow width, not the long way around, hi hi...

[Icey]

Sorry - I put the back, but I meant the front. Whichever, the stupid tablets I had wouldn't come out of the pack and I had to loosen the foil with a pair of scissors! After all that, the pills were jammed tightly, and I had to prize the things out with the said same implement. : (

[pilvikki]

that's just plain stupid! I suggest you tell them, before some old person gets punctured in the process of removing a pill....

I put mine into an organizer, so the nicely printed days of the week are a total waste of effort, but thanks for the thought. now, if i'd remember what day of the week i'm dealing with, they'd be more useful, but...

the only advantage of the blistered packs I can see is not having to worry about counting them... I found that where the pills in the bottle were concerned, so often the count was wrong. against me, naturally. so. you are trusting a person unable, or unwilling, to get the math right, to handle life-saving meds for you?

[Kellemora]

I love to harass my pharmacy.
I carry in my pocket the cost details of each prescription I am on.
Not by the cost of the script in the amount dispensed, but by the cost per gallon (at their retail price).

This irked one of the pharmacists who said I did the math wrong.
He was right, I did do the math wrong. The figure he came up with much higher than my figure.
So I said, I also included the deduction for the inert ingredients and only calculated the active ingredients.
He redid his math again, and still came out a whole lot higher than I did.

In an attempt to try and get his price below mine, he checked with the manufacturer.
After a song and dance about how you cannot calculate dry ingredients using gallon measurements, because the coarseness of the grind would affect the amount considerably. This part is true.
It would also be unfair to compare the weight of liquids to those of powders.

He was beaming ear to ear when I came in the next time, he had the price per ounce by weight of the active ingredient.
It still was a very high number per ounce, more than compared to a liquid ounce figure I used. So I told him to multiply it by 16 to get the price per pound. It came out to over 2 million 4 hundred thousand dollars, plus some change, per pound.

I never did get around to redoing all of my calculations based on dry weight and pounds. It might give me another heart attack to see what I'm really paying for drugs.

TTUL
Gary

[Icey]

LOl - I bet they loved to see you go in the pharmacy Gary! : )

[Kellemora]

Oh, I'm like that in every single store I go into.

In some cases, I save some folks a lot of money when I see them pick up a rip off item, especially those with a name brand label on it, packaged just for the purpose of ripping people off.

Some won't pay attention to what you say, and go ahead and buy the product anyhow.
Would you pay $18.00 for a gallon of laundry bleach.
I'm sure you would say "Of Course NOT!"
Yet I see people do it every time I'm in a grocery store, most without realizing they are paying that much.
Oh, the gallon bottle is priced at $3.00 like all the rest of the name brand bottles on the shelf, but this one particular brand is not like all the rest, even though you recognize the name, like Clorox or Purex, whatever.
If they are used to buying Clorox, the automatically pick up the Clorox bottle, same holds true for Purex.
And this is how they get price gouged big time.

How can that be?
If you don't read the labels each time you buy, to make sure you are getting what you think you are getting, you will get ripped off, especially by laundry bleach companies. Be very leery if it is on sale for some reason, and read the ingredients label.
Concentrated Bleach will give the concentration, normally 8% Sodium Hypochlorite or stronger. New to the bleach shelves.
Regular Bleach you are used to buying, has traditionally been between 5.85% and 6%, the norm being 6%. This is what you expect to be getting when you pick up a bottle of Clorox or Purex.
But Watch Out! Read the Labels.
Some on the shelves with the standard label you are used to seeing is only 3% or less.
If you cannot find what percentage of Sodium Hypochlorite is in the bottle, this means it is LESS THAN 1.15%
They Do Not have to disclose the concentration if it is under 1.15%.

So, if you see a bottle of Clorox for $3.00, and a bottle of Purex for $3.00, Clorox may be 5.85%, but the Purex this time is only 1% for $3.00
So, to get the same disinfectant power of the 6%, you would have to buy 6 bottles at $3.00 each, or $18.00
If 1% bleach works for your purposes, then buy ONE bottle of 6% for $3.00 and dilute it down to make 6 bottles, then your cost per gallon bottle would be FIFTY CENTS, NOT $3.00 which is equivalent to paying $18.00 for 6%.

Bleach is not the only thing you have to watch what you are buying. Many products come in different concentrations, all using the exact same label, except for the percentage amount or however the active ingredient is shown.
When Bar Keepers Friend was $5.00 a can, sitting next to Bon Ami for 23 cents a can, Bar Keepers Friend was still the better deal. Now that Bar Keepers Friend is only a buck a can, it is no better than Bon Ami at 45 cents a can. Because they reduced their active ingredient amount to below other common brands, but still rely on their reputation to continue selling at the now price gouging cost for their product.
FWIW: I order the active ingredient used in Bar Keepers Friend and add it to the generic label no-scratch cleanser, in the amount Bar Keepers Friend originally contained. Save much dollars this way too.

OK, enough grandstanding, climbing down off my soap box.

TTUL
Gary

[Icey]

I couldn't go to all that trouble Gary. You're right in what you say, but I don't mind what percentage of active ingredients're in stuff, so long as it works, doesn't smell nasty, blah blah. I AM a label reader with foodstuff though. No GM things added, no certain colours and preservatives. I don't stand there inspecting everything though. I already know what's "OK" and what isn't, but if a product says: "New and improved", you can guarantee that it'll have something vile in it, and you're probably getting less in the can/box than you were before. : (

[Kellemora]

Most products don't change their formula's without giving them some other name.
But there are a few who are continually trying to rip-off their customers.
Since laundry bleach manufacturers are the most notorious for their bait and switch scams, they are who I usually use in the examples I give.

Pringles is a company who's formula doesn't change, but they use the most deceptive advertising and continually change container sizes and prices to price gouge every chance they get.
The sad thing is, they used to be a fairly honest company, until they began kowtowing to the demands of WalMart, who is probable the ones who taught them all the underhanded nasty tricks they use.
I used to keep their empty cans lined up on a shelf to store things in. For over a decade the cans were always the same size. Then they began changing the size of the cans every time I went to buy their product.
When they pulled a major price hike I switched to Pop-Em's for a couple of years, until I found a store which kept the price for Pringles reasonable. I assume many others found sources other than WalMart to get Pringles cheaper than Pop-Em's, so now you cannot find Pop-Em's anymore.

I don't know about other places, but other than a few select products they have as come-ons, almost everything sold by WalMart is higher priced than some of our mom n pop shops. One of our cheaper than WalMart grocery stores is expanding into what was once a major food chains grocery store. I'm sure they will have to raise their prices some to cover the lease payments on such a huge store, but I doubt if they will go up much.
A lot of the items they sell, new and fresh, not old and near expiration, are half of WalMarts price.
We also have stores that sell old near expiration merchandise, who are naturally lower priced than the mom n pops.

But one should ask themselves, WHY is the Aldi price on eggs 99 cents, mom n pops $1.35, and WalMart $3.19?
Especially when all you hear is how WalMart is driving the mom n pops out of business.
Eggs from Aldi are old, so old they float, hi hi... mom n pops are fresh, sometimes fresher than WalMarts eggs.
Rye Bread, Pepperidge Farm or Arnolds brand, Aldi, $1.19 day old, mom n pops, fresh $1.29, WalMart $3.49.
White bread, Aldi, 68 cents day old, mom n pop, fresh 89 cents, WalMart $1.49
Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup, Aldi if they have it at all, 89 cents, mom n pop 99 cents, WalMart $1.39
I could keep going and going and going, mom n pop is normally cheaper on every day items and staples than WalMart.
But people still FLOOD the WalMart stores for their "Everyday Low Prices" hi hi...

[Icey]

Think yourselves lucky Gary. Over here, for a can of Campbell's chicken noodle soup'd cost you the equivalent of $2. 88!! Our eggs and bread're nowhere near as cheap as yours. A loaf of rye bread'd cost you $2. 44 in a supermarket; sourdough or pumpernickel even more.

I refuse to buy anything at all from Aldi. Their stuff's appalling, to my mind, and how they can advertise their fruit and veg as Grade A, I'll never know, but you're right in principle. If you shop around, you can buy exactly the same stuff at cheaper prices, but people want to buy everything from under one roof instead of having to flit from store to store.

[Kellemora]

Ironically, many of the things I buy, WalMart does not even carry, or if they do, it is overpriced and often not in stock.
On the good side, they will order things in for me in bulk quantities, but they never offer a bulk price for doing so.

One reason I shop at the mom n pop store, besides them being cheaper, the manager always makes sure to have the things I buy most often, and if he's afraid he won't have enough for me, he sets what I usually buy in the back room.
He wouldn't have to do this if the suppliers were more reliable. He's told me many times, he ordered, but they didn't bring it when the brought the rest of his order. This is one reason, as soon as I collect my order, he reorders and stashes it in the back for me, so it is there when I come in the next time. Even when his shelf price was 4 bucks, he only charges me 3.25 for the same product. Chain grocers are like 4.69, WalMart 5.19, and the fee based Sam's Club is even higher, often right at 6 bucks.
Besides my monthly shipment of stuff from an on-line pet store, which includes things for the outdoor wild birds in my order, I often still hit WalMart for things like Suet Cakes, and large sacks of wild bird seed.

I picked up a new modem from WalMart when Comcast said mine was dead. It was 20 bucks higher than my computer dealer sells the same one for. I decided to keep it as a backup since my old modem is due to go south soon. It just irks me when Comcast ALWAYS blames your equipment, and when you replace it, you find the problem WAS at their end all along.

All of these MONOPOLIES which are your ONLY CHOICE (the definition of a Monopoly), get by saying they are not a Monopoly because they have similar sized competitors, like Charter and a few others. Our City gives each of the Monopolies fairly equal territorial areas. So if I lived North instead of South, I would be stock with the Charter Monopoly instead of the Comcast Monopoly. The FACT I have ONLY ONE OPTION is Why they are still a Monopoly... As such, there is no price competition. Which is their reason for remaining Monopolies in control of entire areas.

There was one place I used to live, where I really did have my choice between which electric company to use. The utility pole on the east side of our properly line was the end of the line for KWD Electric, and the utility pole on the west side of our property line was the end of the line for Union Electric. I lived there for just over five years, and switched which company I got my electric from three different times.

The next house I lived in, we had 208 triple-phase, which I had run to my machine shop (garage), saved a bundle. But it was a mistake. As I replaced equipment or bought new, I bought the equipment with 208 motors. When I moved, I had to replace all of the motors with 220. I sold the 208 motors for a fair price, but not enough to make up for the cost of the new motors, even if I did figure in the amount of money I saved on my electric bill by running 208 motors.

OK, I'm rambling again...

TTUL
Gary

[Icey]

Well I guess we're lucky over here, although our country's so much smaller so probably easier to do it, but we have quite a vast choice of energy and phone companies to choose from. You don't always have to be bound by a 12- month or more contract either.
Annoyingly, since you were talking about modems, I think there's something wrong with our router connection, so an engineer's coming out on Friday. We had the same problem before, and it turned out that there was a wobbly socket into the house, but I can't wait to hear what they say this time! : (

[Kellemora]

It's such a hassle to change modems. I wish they would automate the process.
Before we plug the cable into a new one, we have to call and give them the MAC address first. This is usually a two to three hour affair of waiting on hold and being transferred around 50 to 2,000 times, getting disconnected about twenty times in the process and having to call back again.

Seems to me, if you have a working connection, you should be able to go to a website page, enter a second MAC address, plug in your modem, get a connection, and then go and delete your old MAC address. That would be too simple and save way to much time though, so will probably never happen, hi hi...