Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Frumple]

Playing a game (farm dungeons) I'd had sitting in the steam library for a while.

Easiest/first party member you can recruit?

A young child you lure into the dungeon with candy you steal off a bar countertop.

what the hell game

[pisskop]

Makes sense.  Take the kid into the woods and send the ransom letter!

[Robot Parade Leader]

I slipped and banged up a knee. Hurt to put weight on it for a bit. It's slowly getting better, but what an ordeal.

Went to urgent care, got back x-ray I was told was "negative but abnormal." No idea what that means but I get told to see an ortho doctor.
That doctor is too cool to do his job and doesn't care or listen to me. He does not bring up the x-ray I was told was abnormal even though I show him a picture of it on the last provider's computer screen on my phone. He just says "I can't go off that," and he won't pull up the x-ray image in his computer system. Forget him. Second opinion time.

I go to a different Ortho for a second opinion like an hour away in a different hospital system. This new guy takes his own independent x-rays. He gives me the option for an MRI and Physical therapy if I can't walk without crutches soon. He looks at the old x-rays, says he thinks it was questionable technique (which the original provider also stated might be the case and to check with doctor...). He explains everything to me, says he can't be sure there is no soft tissue damage off an x-ray and that would be what an MRI would be for if stuff doesn't clear up. He says likely sprain or bone bruise.

This is the US so this whole debacle will likely run me $1000 in x-ray, etc. If I get the MRI it will get about another $500 to $1000. This is with insurance and it would have been even more if my insurance company had not lowered the price based on their contract allowed rates. I might pay somewhat less on the MRI once my deductible is met. Still will easily cost me $1,500. That is before any potential PT and or (hopefully unlikely microsurgery) if anything is torn (again unlikely to need but possible).

I get a survey from the first hospital system asking me how care was. My first instinct is "bad," because I had to go to an entirely different hospital system. I also don't want to cause issues.   Between "negative but abnormal" (Wtf is that?) and the ortho who didn't care enough to look at the apparently weird x-ray.... I mean, come on doc.... When a provider says to take an x-ray to a physician who does this sort of thing I expect you to look at the x-ray bare minimum, and dare I dream tell me what's wrong with it or what's going on.

Part of me wants to fill out the survey and tell the truth and the smarter part of me just does not want to deal with what I am afraid will be retaliation against me. The job was not done and I had to go an hour away to go to a much better hospital. I'm paying hundreds of dollars for this so far (and you know they'll tack on whatever charges they can) and I just got shuffled around. However, I'm sick of living in a world that hurts you the moment you pop your head up.

Healthcare in the US sucks.

[McTraveller]

The US health care is indeed a mess - but why would you fear "retaliation" for a survey?

If you never go back there, what could possibly happen?

[pisskop]

This is a slight exaggeration, but even its sometimes hard to trust that surveys will be anonymous.

[Mathel]

My guess at "negative but abnormal" is that there is no direct damage to bone, but the bones are misaligned.

[ChairmanPoo]

My guess is there were no significant findings, that the 'abnormal'part referred to the quality of the image being poor and made it unsuitable for even a conventional xray report, and that in any case MRI imaging was probably needed all along (obviously on a nonurgent basis).

[Lord Shonus]

A lot of people have "abnormal" bones that are formed differently than the average, which is something that your average doctor's office or urgent care center isn't fully qualified to evaluate. Meanwhile most of those divergences are actually harmless, so the resultant referrals do little besides clog the orthopedic specialists.

[ChairmanPoo]

I kinda doubt they'd do referrals for that but its not impossible. In my own practice I bounce back ~80% of the referrals that come in.

[nenjin]

So what you're saying is...it could be Boneitis?

[hector13]

I think he’s saying he’s a gourmet and will only accept the best.

[nenjin]

Scrumptious maladies.

[Robot Parade Leader]

This is a slight exaggeration, but even its sometimes hard to trust that surveys will be anonymous.

Yes, this.

Wow. That is what the nurse practitioner said, that and "maybe bad technique you need to see the doctor to be sure." Honestly the only reason I didn't freak out was because the second opinion doctor reviewed it with me with his own independent x-rays.

Nurse practitioner said it seemed misaligned "up and to the left." She showed it to me and it did look like that, but what do I know. First doctor could not be bothered to look at it. Whoever you are, if you have an x-ray on film I would hope a doctor would at least look at it (that guy's portion cost me $300 alone). Second opinion doctor said his independent x-ray did not show it.

Yeah, the second opinion doctor said there were no bone findings but that he cannot rule out soft tissue like ligaments, or cartilage without an MRI. However, based upon manual examination. (He put his hands all around my knee and moved it very way he could basically), he did not believe there was any torn ligament or tendon.

He stated it was likely a bad bone bruise or sprain

He did offer me PT and an MRI. I'm not thrilled at the idea of another $500-$1000 but part of me knows I kind of need it to be sure.

I asked the second opinion doctor if there was any dislocation, subluxation, misalignment (words I got told to ask about) or anything to do with positioning and he said no.... I still have the original x-ray and I can see what the nurse practitioner is talking about it looks up and to the left, but I think the second opinion doctor at least addressed it honestly and said it was nothing. Still weirds me out a little but as long as it ends up better.

[ChairmanPoo]

Its not necessarily what you think. People come to clinic all the time with random stuff that someone has told them that needs to be reviewed but has actually already been reviewed prior.

[Robot Parade Leader]

I get that may be the case doc. I do, but when they want to bill me $400 for that portion of it alone, then I'd like the bone doctor to spend a minute pointing out to me what the x-ray from the urgent care means. I want and need his expert opinion. I understand and agree the doctor is smarter than I am. I need him to tell me what those smarts are telling him, because I am a layperson who has no idea, and was doing what a nurse practitioner told me to do. I was following orders from someone smarter than me, and I don't get what the first doctor expected me to do differently, or why he would not listen to like 30 seconds of relevant medical history. 

Also, it is night and day that the first doctor did not seem to care at all and the second one offered me PT and an MRI.
I am wondering if I should take the MRI and I probably will, but it just is a lot.