Big Brother medicine
Is anyone else getting annoyed at the prompts we keep getting from government departments and private medical and dentist practices.
This is your reminder its six months since your last checkup
This is a reminder from the doctor that we would like to set up an assessment plan
This is a reminder the bowel cancer check, the breast cancer check, the skin cancer check.
What really gets me - how did they get my mobile phone number.
The silly thing is what was going to put me six foot under didn't even come upon their radar.
Does anyone else find this an invasion of privacy and if I don't want so many checkups then it really is my business.
I get reminders too. I think it's whenever my doctor can do with a financial top up.
Guess it could be happening in areas if there are too many medical facilities where you are located, which are prone to be in the cities ...being located in the country if you ring for an appointment you usually have to wait for about a week unless there is a cancellation.
At least you have a few people caring about your welfare and health rosret, it's better than being completely alone and totally ignored. :)
If it was for my wellbeing I wouldn't mind. Its for their backpocket and in the government's case, stats building and ensuring future funding.
No there is a difference between invasion of privacy, and pushy people drumming up business. Surely this comes under the "donot call" register.
Be glad for the reminders while you can, soon they won't even bother to send them out.
I don't get any reminders. What am i missing out on??
I get one sms from my medical clinic the day before an appointment I HAVE MADE.
I get one sms from my dental clinic the day before an appointment I HAVE MADE, asking me to confirm that I am still coming.
That's it. Nothing else. My medical clinic does not even email, sms, or snail mail me when the flu injections are available. I have to call them and check around the time I think they become available.
The only reason both my dentist and doctor check with me about my appointments is that they are chock a block full, and it is hard to get appointments. They rightly get as annoyed as I do about selfish idiots who don't bother turning up, and causing someone else to miss out.
If you are so concerned about overservicing, you have two options, report them to Medicare, and then find a better doctor. If you had an ounce of common sense, you would have already done this, instead of wasting time and energy whinging on a website.
I'll second that, johninmelb.
What are the odds that if he/she did NOT get reminders, Rosret would complain about being neglected?
johninmelb, perhaps you are not a very good patient. Time for some introspection?
No idea what you are talking about.
I am an excellent patient. I have an excellent doctor, and the clinic I go to is also excellent, hence the reason they are now full. I have never heard anyone say anything bad about this clinic.
I do not waste the doctor's or staff's time when I am there. I go for a medical appointment, not to have a chat about what the neighbours are doing etc, because I am lonely, and need someone to talk to - just like the elderly time wasters at the bank and the Post Office.
I turn up for my appointments on time, and if the doctor is runnign behind schedule, I grin and bear it. Always take my kindle to read while I am waiting. It might annoy me sometimes, but then I remember the times when my doctor gave me extra time to discuss a problem, thus making the next person wait longer.
I have never been overserviced at this clinic, and they don't prescribe medicine just because I might ask for it. The doctors have medical training, I don't. If they decide I don't need something, I don't get it. However, I will ask for an explanation, if I am unsure about their advice.
As for my dentist, well I've been going there for around 40 years. The staff will bend over backwards to assist me. Every emergency I have had, they reshuffled patients to accommodate me. I could never praise them highly enough for the wonderful service I get there, and my dentist is absolutely fantastic. I have no fear when I have to go to see him.
How lucky are you all! My son has a family who get 6 month dental reminders for each person in the family. If he has taken them to a different dentist then they send reminders too .... and you can't get them off their database.
Its pleasing to see not everyone is having this invasion of privacy and harassing letters and phone calls. I wondered where it was coming from and how they had my mobile phone number that I didn't even give them.
I am not criticising the medical profession just the spruiking. I am on the "do not call" register and I am over nuisance calling.
Sadly, the Do Not Call Register does not apply to organisations you already have a relationship with.
You could try asking them politely, to make a note on your file to not call or email you. They just need to be made aware they are annoying you. I doubt they are seriously trying to destroy their practice by alienating patients.
It is likely that at some point, you did give them your mobile number, maybe as an emergency contact or something. There is no central listing of mobile numbers, so they can't look it up anywhere, and privacy rules preclude them getting from somewhere else.
Abby, its extraordinarily difficult to get an appointment to a dentist or a doctor in our neck of the woods too. One day when I was sitting in the dentist listening to the dental nurse ringing up patients to remind them it was check up time. I did say I wouldn't have had to wait three weeks with this cracked tooth if she would just stop phoning people.
When waiting in the doctors surgery after waiting three days for an appointment the lady next to me said she made an appointment for the same time each Friday and cancelled it if she didn't need it!
I am quite happy to be given a general schedule of when vaccinations, checkups etc are required but not an intimate personal analysis of what I have or haven't had or should have checked.
That is a similar problem here .. people make an appointment for the following week ... problem with free medicine.
The doctors like it as it maximises their profits.
In our area of South East Queensland/ Wide Bay Burnett, the only reminders that we get are the well-worn "time for the Flu shot!" which anyone with respect for their own health and longetivity situation should totally refuse!
Here we have suffered a multitude of itinerant "Doctors" who because of the temporary positions have been unable or unwilling to give the necessary diagnosis and treatment to patients, especially the elderly.
Being over 70 years of age, I am now convinced that we are classed as "oxygen/ space wasters" a fact which one of the itinerants told me to my face, because I was suffering from a multitude of varying complaints suddenly appearing after a vicious bout of the "Flu" around 5 years ago, leaving me with chronic bouts of coughing, severe shortage of breath, severe and unrelenting back pain around the lungs, ribs and lower back. An X-ray diagnosis of COPD did nothing to elicit a program of treatment to help or assist an attempt to return to a reasonable state of health.
During these years I had exhibited badly swollen ankles and especially the right leg area, which did not seem to respond much to regular fluid tablets, and the normal run of "pain-killers" did nothing to ease the pain. I was advised to walk, walk, walk, but I coud not take more than a couple of steps before nearly passing out from pain and lack of breath.
Eventually after doing considerable "Intertnet Analysis" I approached the current Doctor with the question" Could this be "Congestive Heart Failure?" to which he smiled and replied "Yes! It could be!" ....."So what can we do about it?" I asked. "I think you should see a Lung Specialist first, to be sure it is NOT YOUR LUNGS!"
I got a Clinical meeting with a visiting Lung Specialist, about two months later, who seemed a trifle disinterested and suggested that he thought it was my heart that was the problem, so I should go and get a Echogardiogram and go back and see him in 3 months time, and he would write to "my" doctor with this recommendation. That letter is still pending after my last visit to my doctor. last week and I am booked in to get an Echocardiogram carried out next week.
The problem is now that my medical situation is so compromised that I doubt if any medical facility will even contemplate any type of medical procedure and I may simply be on borrowed time?.....all because my Congestive Heart Failure shoud have been diagnosed a few years back, when they suggested that I had a "silent" heart attack!
The warning is simple for everyone! If you get a bad dose of the many rampant Influenza/ exotic viruses, make sure that you are treated with sufficiently strong Antibiotics to drive it out of your system, or it will continue within your body causing all sorts of damage and distress, and if you are NOT sure, then seek other opinions!
Yes, Cuphandle - I live in a parallel universe. I went to a bulk bill doctor and said "I think there is something wrong with my heart." He put all the wheels in motion and saved my life. - and it took years of going to doctors saying something is wrong! I am a real fan of Dr Google.
I only get emails from my dentist when I am due for my check up which I appreciate....definitely no phone calls
If these reminders offend you why not put your name on the do not all list and advise the peole not to ring you.