Healthcare and the best of the summer

I need to schedule a physical because I’m pretty sure I have restless overreactive brain syndrome which will result in my untimely death and Mr. B becoming a young widower who finally gets some peace and quiet and doesn’t have to answer my annoying questions.  This is in spite of the fact that I am now virtually bulletproof.    But,  I’ve been having some trouble scheduling my physical.

There are several issues at hand here.  First,  there is no free market for medicine in America (or in most places) and I am forced to  choose between whatever is available from my company-sponsored healthcare plan.So I am already segmented into a specific group of doctors and can’t choose who I want.

The other problem is that healthcare knowledge is generally not public knowledge, at least to my knowledge,  so there is no rating system [I need to schedule a physical because I’m pretty sure I have restless overreactive brain syndrome which will result in my untimely death and Mr. B becoming a young widower who finally gets some peace and quiet and doesn’t have to answer my annoying questions.  This is in spite of the fact that I am now virtually bulletproof.    But,  I’ve been having some trouble scheduling my physical.

There are several issues at hand here.  First,  there is no free market for medicine in America (or in most places) and I am forced to  choose between whatever is available from my company-sponsored healthcare plan.So I am already segmented into a specific group of doctors and can’t choose who I want.

The other problem is that healthcare knowledge is generally not public knowledge, at least to my knowledge,  so there is no rating system](http://www.yelp.com/arlington-va) for doctors other than word-of-mouth from those in the same healthcare plan as you. (Although there have been some attempts.)

So I end up having to root around on my insurance company’s website for a list of doctors near my office and I get a list of physicians that includes their name, address, medical school, and specialty, which is not much to go by at all.

The process ends up going something like this,

So, for now, I am stuck.  If I could, I would really stay away from Soviet-educated doctors. But other than that, I have no information upon which to base my decision.  This is extremely frustrating on several levels, one of which is that I can’t go to my old pediatrician anymore since he retired and therefore cannot receive a Tootsie Pop when I’m done with my visit.

Eventually, I’ll suck it up and pick one at random.

It’s not as big of a problem as this post makes it out to be.  But I really just wanted an excuse to post that last tweet one more time, because it’s the best thing I’ve written all summer.