A trip to the doctor’s office comes with a bit of preparation for most, maybe even an internal pep talk to prepare for being told to get more exercise or calm a simmering fear of needles.
But dressing well in hopes of warding off unfair treatment – or even bracing for being insulted?
A newly released poll by KFF, a health policy research group, found many patients of color — including 3 in 5 Black respondents — take such steps at least some of the time when seeing a doctor.
The poll found that 55% of Black respondents said they feel like they must be very careful about their appearance to be treated fairly at medical visits. That’s similar to the rate for Hispanic and Alaska Native patients – and nearly double the rate for white patients.
Something interesting I’ve noticed about doctors: they don’t even like each other from what I’ve seen. And many of them don’t go to see a doctor very often themselves. One of my good friends is married to a doctor, and they tell me about some of this stuff. And doctors all talk shit about their patients, of course. And they are incredibly difficult to manage / supervise. They see themselves as authority figures and don’t respond well to higher authority.
I think they are also super stressed out and overworked. There aren’t nearly enough of them for the global population of patients. And the evil health insurance companies hover over everything like the fucking Borg.
Of course none of this excuses racism.
That doesn’t surprise me.
Just because someone is a doctor doesn’t make them a good person. The more shitty people they’re around, the harder it is to be good.
One of my DILs is a woman of color. She was in so much pain but got turned away from two emergency rooms because they labeled her as seeking opioids. Luckily we were able to drive her to a hospital in a nearby town that took her seriously. She had an ovarian torsion. It was quite serious and getting worse by the minute. Thank God for the ER doc at that hospital, who happened to be a woman of color herself.
Off the main topic, but those insurance companies, fuck those people. My doctor is having so much trouble getting a pre-authorization for a medication that I truly need. We’ve been going in circles for weeks. I’m allergic to one of the ingredients in the cheaper meds and they still want me to rule those out first. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like it when my throat swells shut.
Every time my Drs office calls them, it’s like we are starting over from scratch.
I honestly don’t know how those people sleep at night.
Over 20 years ago, I worked for a health insurance company (not proud of it). I remember someone in the claims department telling me how they often rejected claims over a certain dollar amount without even looking at them, just to force the patient into re-submitting the claim. It was one reason I decided to quit and find another job. It’s gotten even worse since then. Private insurance is a complete scam in the USA.