What are you doing today?

[cbum]

Well, ideally, you wouldn't - that's the job of the GP.

 

[Citysnaps]

If not, I may do what my wife did, and go to a concierge doctor. It costs her several grand a year just to join, but she tells me she doesn’t have the problems I am having with Sutter/PAMF.

Sorry you're going through all that. I had been with PAMF for around 20 years. Initially they were pretty good. My last primary care doctor was outstanding, and asked excellent questions. He was so good I had a feeling he'd be going private practice in the future.

Last year I had what I believed was a hernia. My primary care doctor left PAMF around two years ago and went concierge. Trying to get *any* primary care doctor to assess my issue was 6 months out. That was really frustrating. Imo... PAMF has gone way down hill after being acquired by Sutter Health a couple years ago.

I reached out to Stanford Medicine and saw an "express care" physician the same day who confirmed it was indeed a hernia. The doctor made a referral to a surgeon, who I saw a month later. The initial visit with him went well and set me up for surgery a month and a half later. Which also went well (he's done a few thousand hernia surgeries). He also cut through the red tape and referred me to a new primary care doctor at Stanford Med who is also excellent.

As an aside... the primary care doctor that I had at PAMF and liked a lot went private practice concierge with two other doctors. And charges around $100K per year. Clearly they're going after Atherton folk where that cost isn't a biggie.

 

[Roller]

I have yet another weird malady that the doctors seem disinterested in. I thought i had impacted wax in my left ear, because that’s happened a couple times before, because my ear feels like something is in there, i hear and I feel a fluttering after each time that I speak. In the past that was wax. This time I also feel some mild pain in my ear and head, and sometimes when I get out of bed I lose my balance for a few seconds.

ENT didn’t find wax, tested ear pressure, and prescribed tylenol, saying it may have something to do with the nerve thing in my neck which causes neck pain and numbness in my thumb and index finger (still a few months away from a neurology appointment).

Lately every time I have a medical issue and see a specialist, they shrug their shoulders and point me to a different specialist, and then never follow up. Shoulder surgeon sends me for an EMG, the neurologist reports the results, then nothing happens. My fingers go completely numb, so I see a hand surgeon, who sends me to a neurologist (but this time an appointment takes 5 months). Now the ENT shrugs his shoulders and wishes me good luck. Meanwhile my GP just wants to follow the “order 15 blood tests, yell at me for not getting a colonoscopy yet” script - last time I was in for a physical, I also had a persistent cough, and when I mentioned it she told me I had to pick either the physical or the cough because she couldn’t do both in the same appointment. When I ask for advice on what I’m hearing from specialists and what I should do about it, she shrugs.

Now that I’ve written all this, I just realized doctors really suck. Our friend excepted, of course.

Sorry you're going through this. The key is to find a prime care physician – such as internal medicine or family practice – who can coordinate your care and direct you to the appropriate specialists and keep track of the results. Switch doctors if needed. I see several specialists, but my primary looks at their notes and test results and lets me know what I should do next.

I agree with @cbum about your ENT. They probably should have done more investigation. Problems with balance, regardless of the cause, are a red flag because they can lead to falls and injury. I suspect you will need imaging to figure out what's going on.

 

[Roller]

There a weird symmetry here. I wonder if doctors complain about lawyers.

Most of my legal contact has been as an expert consultant on malpractice cases, and it's been interesting. There are bad eggs in every basket, but I like and have respect for the lawyers who do their job well.

 

[Cmaier]

Sorry you're going through all that. I had been with PAMF for around 20 years. Initially they were pretty good. My last primary care doctor was outstanding, and asked excellent questions. He was so good I had a feeling he'd be going private practice in the future.

Last year I had what I believed was a hernia. My primary care doctor left PAMF around two years ago and went concierge. Trying to get *any* primary care doctor to assess my issue was 6 months out. That was really frustrating. Imo... PAMF has gone way down hill after being acquired by Sutter Health a couple years ago.

I started with PAMF when I switched careers, in 2007. Things used to be much smoother. I should probably get a primary care doctor at stanford, too. I’ve gone with stanford for a few things over the years, and things have generally gone smoothly there, but PAMF is more geographically convenient for me.