Is the Doctor Accepting New Patients? Sort Of

I tell the receptionist that we have X insurance. I guess I have the right one because the conversation continues. She explains that the doctors are providing flu shots in "clinics." Right now the clinics are "booked out" until November. She tells me that I may schedule an appointment for the November clinic except for one minor problem: they are not allowed to schedule anyone for the November clinic until they receive more flu vaccine so I can't really schedule an appointment for our daughter until then. When is that? I ask.

"I don't know," she says.

"Just go to your local drug store or flu clinic" I am told. But, "If your daughter does become ill, call and we will see her right away."

"Thanks," I say.

"May my daughter meet Dr. H so that we are sure she--?"

"Dr. H does not conduct 'meet and greets.'"

"Oh."

Instead I will have to bring my daughter in for an appointment when something is "wrong with her" in order to "establish a relationship with the doctor." Or, she says, I may bring my daughter in for a "'Well care, age 8,' appointment" except for the fact that the next time they have an opening for a "well care appointment, age 8" is near the end of December. By then, my daughter will have already turned 9.

"You can schedule her for a 'Well Care, Age 9' appointment, then."

I grab the appointment for late December.

I get it now. This is all insurance discourse for those legitimate doctor-patient interactions that are "covered." "Meet and greets," I suppose, are not.

On to trying to make an appointment with a doctor for me so that I may get a "scrip" for my annual mammogram. I call the family practice physician who has come highly recommended from two women in town - one a professor from the college, another a wonderful, dynamic woman and former public school teacher and wife of a soon-to-be retiring professor at the college.

I never see male doctors. But the women remind me that if I get the sniffles, it's always good to have someone local instead of doing that which I was proposing and that which we do for everything good since moving here: drive 60-90 minutes across the bay.

But this highly recommended male doctor who "really listens to what you have to say," "who likes to have you participate in your health care" will not accept a new patient unless the patient first completes a "report," which he reviews. Dr. Personable and Local then decides whether he will accept you as one of his patients or basically tell you to go to . . . elsewhere.

I think that it is important to mention how similar in tone my telephone conversations with doctors' offices have been here in Maryland. The discussion with the local doctor's receptionist went something like this and it was not unlike other interactions I have had:

"Hi, is Dr. X taking new patients?"

"What type of insurance do you have?"

"Excuse me?"

"What type of insurance do you have?

"X insurance."

"It's not an HMO is it?"

"I'm not sure."

"Do you have your card?"

"Yes."

"Look at the back of it and tell me the address where you send claims."

"P.O. Box 725 . . . ."

"Okay, good. Now, the doctor may see you after you complete a report reviewing your medical history. This can be emailed or mailed. Which would you prefer?"

"Email."

I'm thinking about starting a small movement. Maybe I'll call it "The Common Folk for Single Payer Health Care."

As I write this the local church bells chime the hour. They ring out from beginning to end former slave trader John Newton's "Amazing Grace" . . . I once was lost, but now I'm . . .

1 OCTOBER UPDATE: That "report" that the local doctor's receptionist said she would email still has not arrived. I guess I didn't even make the cut over the phone once I gently questioned the doctor's practice of having patient's pass a paper test before being accepted into his family practice.