I’m exhausted! On Thursday, the passenger in my car told me that he’d already been to an orthopedic doctor, had undergone secondary x-rays and had them examined. On my part, I’d been trying to reach individually any one of a few orthopedic doctors in my health fund that were referred to me. One was out of the office until Monday and had no voice mail, the other had voice mail but wasn’t returning my messages. I finally gave up yesterday and just picked any random doctor off of their web site and tried to make an appointment. Nothing until Monday. Fine…what’s another day?
This morning I arrive for my 11:10 appointment (who makes them for such odd times?). I was told I had a half-hour wait. The whole idea of making an appointment and waiting then for half an hour seems odd to me, but I’m sure this could happen anywhere. When he finally invites me in, of the 5 minutes I was there he seemed more interested in dealing with the billing issue than listening to me. The great “billing” is for all of 18 shekels ($4) deductible that I have to pay to my health insurance and then have the same health insurance reimburse since it was a car accident.
After ignoring most of what I had to say, he performed a cursory exam and said I had to bring new x-rays because he didn’t trust the ER. That’s great, and I have no problem. The issue is that on the way to the private x-ray clinic, I had to stop off at the health fund’s clinic to get a form that they’ll cover the deductible for the private x-ray clinic. By the time I got to the clinic for the form, the x-ray clinic was now closed until 4pm. Not only that, but I found out that the deductible which I’d assumed was in the hundreds, was all of 20 shekels ($5). If I’d skipped this step, I’d have made the x-ray on time. So now I have to sit around for 4 hours and go back.
But that’s not all! Said doctor was leaving for the day at noon as well and won’t be in tomorrow. The soonest appointment I can make for him to review the x-rays is Wednesday morning. What is this farce!
My passenger, as I’d mentioned, had it all done in the space of an hour or two in a single building at his health fund’s emergency medical facility in Ramat Hasharon. The only reason I’d joined my fund is that they were the only ones with a top-level sports medicine center that included specialist sports doctors & a physio clinic. If I leave my fund, the costs for each visit double or triple. I’m beginning to think that’s a small cost to bear.
So I’m considering switching, but am trying to give it a last-ditch effort by finding someone at my health fund who can explain to me what the benefits are to staying. I mean, surely there must be some benefits. Unfortunately, so far a call to their national call center have resulted in a woman who told me she doesn’t know what they offer, doesn’t know how they compare to the others, and it’s my decision if I want to leave. She is really making that decision easy. I’ll give it a few more days of trying to ensure I’m not making a decision with clouded judgement.
[tags]israel, medical, medicine, insurance, accident, injury[/tags]
