Thursday, December 30, 2004
A visit to the doctor's
I had to take my newborn to the doctor today. We took him for his 2day appt yesterday and he weighed 5lb 10oz a full pound down from his birth weight.
We were convinced that the nurse had done a shoddy job of weighing, she seemed to be in a hurry and didn't really check to see if the pointer was level
I wonder why they have those antique-seeming mechanical scales anyway where you have to move two pieces on different bars and have to get them just right so the pointer is exactly level. Don't they have accurate digital scales?
Anyway the doctor told us that our son was jaundiced and needed a formula supplement. I am convinced that Enfamil pays this clinic to shill(?) their products 'cos he promptly gave us a sample of Enfamil (plus there is an ad for Enfamil on the back-page of the pamphlet that the clinic gave us, plus the pamphlet explicitly recommends Enfamil as a supplement to breast-milk rather than saying something generic like "formula")
And he told us to meet him the next day to check the weight again and the colour of the baby's skin. I asked the girl at the front-desk if I could be not billed for the next day's appt since all we were doing was checking weight and skin colour. She said I'd have to talk to the doctor.
So we go to the clinic again the next day and are made to wait for a full hour after the weight is taken (which is almost 5oz more than yesterday, seems imossible given that the baby spent more time pooping than feeding). The doctor spent about 3 minutes with us and told us that the weight gain offset any other concerns he might have had.
When I asked him about not charging me he said that I'd have to take it up with the billing department, but I wouldn't let go and he condescended to scrawly "Requests not to be charged" on that piece of paper we had to return at the front-desk.
He seemed po'd but so was I. Having to wait an hour to spend a couple of minutes and then to be charged for it... C'mon!
I am heartily sick of the medical system in the US. When I was working in India my company picked up all my medical bills and while I was visiting in my wife's hometown all the doctors were family friends and made house-calls and didn't even charge.
We were convinced that the nurse had done a shoddy job of weighing, she seemed to be in a hurry and didn't really check to see if the pointer was level
I wonder why they have those antique-seeming mechanical scales anyway where you have to move two pieces on different bars and have to get them just right so the pointer is exactly level. Don't they have accurate digital scales?
Anyway the doctor told us that our son was jaundiced and needed a formula supplement. I am convinced that Enfamil pays this clinic to shill(?) their products 'cos he promptly gave us a sample of Enfamil (plus there is an ad for Enfamil on the back-page of the pamphlet that the clinic gave us, plus the pamphlet explicitly recommends Enfamil as a supplement to breast-milk rather than saying something generic like "formula")
And he told us to meet him the next day to check the weight again and the colour of the baby's skin. I asked the girl at the front-desk if I could be not billed for the next day's appt since all we were doing was checking weight and skin colour. She said I'd have to talk to the doctor.
So we go to the clinic again the next day and are made to wait for a full hour after the weight is taken (which is almost 5oz more than yesterday, seems imossible given that the baby spent more time pooping than feeding). The doctor spent about 3 minutes with us and told us that the weight gain offset any other concerns he might have had.
When I asked him about not charging me he said that I'd have to take it up with the billing department, but I wouldn't let go and he condescended to scrawly "Requests not to be charged" on that piece of paper we had to return at the front-desk.
He seemed po'd but so was I. Having to wait an hour to spend a couple of minutes and then to be charged for it... C'mon!
I am heartily sick of the medical system in the US. When I was working in India my company picked up all my medical bills and while I was visiting in my wife's hometown all the doctors were family friends and made house-calls and didn't even charge.
