Medical Hodgepodge

What’s Wrong With This Scenario?
How Can It Be Rectified?

A patient goes to his Primary Cary Doctor for a routine visit. While there, he tells the doctor that his feet feel numb. The feeling is hard to describe because he has never had that feeling before. It’s been like that for a few months. In addition it seems that his big toes seem to appear larger than normal. The doctor refers to patient to a Podiatrist.
The patient makes am appointment with the podiatrist whose office is in a small building about the size of a small house. After examination the podiatrist make a diagnosis of 1. Hallux Malleous; 2. Neuropathy. The podiatrist refers the patient to another doctor, whom he thinks is a neurologist but turns out to be a physiatrist.
So Now the patient see the physiatrist.. During the examination, the doctor determines that, yes, the problem is the feet is neuro pathology but the cause is undetermined, but probably a pinched nerve and that it is sometimes that it’s possible that the patient’s threshold for pain is prohibiting him from feeling any pain in the lower back down the the legs.
Now, in the meantime the patient has a routine 3-month follow-up appointment with his primary doctor and requests the report from the the physiatrist and after studying all the information schedules the patient for an MRI and says that a pinched nerve will show up if that is the problem. He also makes a prescription for a drug to alleviate pain. Also, in the meantime the patient has a 2-week follow-up with the podiatrist who prescribes a compounded cream made of 6 drugs to alleviate the pain. The podiatrist is not too good at explaining things on a layman’s level, so the patient has to continually ask for clarification as to what is going on.
The patient receives a call from the neurologist, sets up the appointment and directs the patient to a web site to print out a 5-page new patient packet of forms.
The patient gets his MRI moved up two weeks and finally has the procedure done. After the test, the administrator ask if the patient has fallen. The patient would usually ask, “why” and go into a dialogue, but now just wants to get the hell out of there feeling tired of all the running around with his problem. Later the patient tries to remember if he has fallen. He can’t remember falling recently, but does recall that about three years ago, after a long day motorcycle trip, the latter part of the trip being cold, and that after dismounting, he did, in fact fall down, but it wasn’t a major fall, nothing hurt, just felt silly to having done so. However, the patient will mention to the neurologist of the incident.
The Neurologist has three offices at three different locales. He is only in the nearest office one day per week. The patient makes an appoint over two weeks away. He later thinks that maybe he should call the other two offices to see if he can get in earlier or put on a standby cancellation list.
What the hell! This is crazy. This system is absolutely, and without question, stupid, inane, illogical, budensome, unfair, wasteful as to time and money, and a host of other gone wrong somehow nuances.
This speaks of nothing but the idioticy of human kind as opposed to common sense and how the power-elitists who run socialistic institutional activities such as government, education, recreation, social programs, medicine, et al think and act and soak the common man of his money, time, and energy without regard for the actual overall wellbeing of others. In the guise of healing and rehabilitation, the personal greed of the care-giver comes before true care of the client.
Why not this? Why not a medical facility staffed by doctors, nurses, technicians, and support personel, all in one location where a patient can show up early in the morning and go through a routine of tests, each stage and station of the test determining directed by a central moderator who, at some point make a final determination of the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. It would be worth it even if it took two or three consecutive days to get everything thing done
Can the solution be done and is it feasible given medical costs, insurance, etc.? Damn right it can be. It’s a matter of translating how it’s done at a military hospital or clinic into a civilian mode of operation. Everything and everyone located in one location and the patient shuttled to and from until everything is finalized from beginning to end in the shortest amount of time. If I was young and energetic and wanted to make some big money, I would not rest until I managed to come up with some investors and creative people to come up with just such a solution.