My first experience with American Health Care system

It all started a few days ago when the inner part of my ear was getting a bit itchy. "Maybe I rubbed too hard trying to clean my ear during shower this morning," I thought. I kind of ignored the pain.

The pain didn't go way. In fact when I woke up yesterday, I felt like there's some fluid in my ear, even though I couldn't any wax or fluid out when I tried to clean my ear with tissue paper. Things got even worse later, and eventually I could not hear anything from my left ear. Feeling painful, I left office slightly earlier and try to do some research on finding a doctor to fix my ear.

Here I have to explain something: I haven't seen a doctor for oh so many years. That doesn't mean I didn't feel sick at all. Quite the opposite, I have flu several times each year almost constantly. But every time I felt sick, I use the same formula to fix them problem: sleep, drink water, sleep, and drink even more water. Sometime I will take some off the shelf medicine like Night Qyil or so. But most educated people know that those so called medicine does pretty much nothing except trying to put you into sleep.

The bottom line is that I didn't see doctor. Didn't find the need. And I am still alive.

In fact, if I were not about to leave US and getting back to HK next week, I would leave my ear the way it was for yet another week.

Plus, the pain caused by the tumor inside my ear was getting a tag unbearable last night.

So I spent a lot of time researching. At first I need to figure out what treatment option I have based on my medical plan. I chose PPO, which later on I was glad that I made that decision instead of choosing HMO.

I went to the web site of my medical care provider, and start searching for doctors. But wait, which kind of doctor should I choose? General Practice or Specialist? I have confidence that I know exactly what sort of problem I was having after doing some research on the Internet. Yet when I go to those Specialist web site, they seem to cater to performing surgery. No way my little tumor in my ear caused by my rubbing during shower will need a surgery procedure. I read, and got confused, and read even more, and got even more confused. Finally I decided that I would go to see a General Practice doctor, mostly because General Practice charge $20 while Specialist charge $40. By the time I made up my mind, it's 12:00 midnight already. My ear was in pain, I was exhausted, so I went to sleep.

By the time I woke up it's 8:45 am already. I logged on to company network to notify my teammate not being able to come to office today. And then I called the phone number of the General Practice doctor.

"The number you dialed no longer exist ..." I was like ... waht? So I picked another doctor. His phone number gave me fax tone. I moved to the third choice. There it said on the web site "does not take new patient". Fourth choice: NO PHONE NUMBER provided.

I was like, what the ***k was going on.

Eventaually I found one with a working phone number. The receptionist asked for my name, but before I finished my sentence, she huged up. So I tried again, this time she didn't hung up, but instead asking me to hold for 15 minutes. She came back while I was trying to take advantage of the waiting time by brush my teeth. She told me to photocopy a bunch of IDs and stuff, fax to her, and she said she'll call me back to let me know if I was "being accepted as a patient", and schedule an appointment LATER.

I hunged up the phone and thought, why bother with all these mess? Screw it. I'll just pick a near by clinic, bring all my cards and document, and cut this "fax me this and that" nonsense. So I picked a doctor, put the information in my iPod Touch, and left home. I picked that doctor because (1) it's easy to navigate since it's right on Belairre and (2) the doctor was the only female among the top 15 search result, and I felt like female doctors were more gentle in general (don't know why I ahve that strange bias) .

So I drove to the Kelsey-Seybold Clinic and went to 3rd floor as was indicated by the address, only to find out that the doctor was no longer practice at that location. However, the lady at reception reminded me, "actually, you can go to any doctor you like with PPO."

"Any doctor?" I asked, "good, then do you have any doctor that I can see right away?"

So I instantly got assigned to see Sunday Fadula Jr, M.D. . All the staff at Kelsey-Seybold Clinic that I deal with were very nice. And for some strange reason, they ALL interest in my iPod Touch. Some even thought it's an iPhone. The bottom line is that they all loved the device.

At the end, Doctor Fadula told me that I had infection in my ear, and prescribed me ear drop medicine and some pills. The whole visit cost me $20.

So I brought 2 pages of prescription to the Walgreen near my living place. It took 30 minutes for them to have my medicine ready even though there was only one costume besides me. Maybe it's because this was my first time and I had no record in the system, I thought. Luckily I have my iPod Touch to entertain me, so that 30 minutes didn't seem that long. 1 bottle of ear drop with 1 bottle of pills cost me $20.

I don't know for sure by effective the medicines are since this is my first day taking medication. Hopefully it won't take long to cure. But again, I was thankful that I chose PPO. Otherwise, I would have to get back home and find another HMO doctor just because the information on my stupid provider's web site was outdated.