01/09/2001

A trip to the doctor's office

So I went to the otolaryngologist yesterday. Doctors have such a racket going. I arrived 20 minutes early for a 3:30 PM appointment. Since this was my first visit to this practice, I wanted to be sure that I had time to fill out any forms and get all the insurance crap out of the way. So I fill everything out and grab a magazine. All they had were golf magazines. Not even an issue of Highlights. So I grab the most "interesting" golf magazine and wait. And wait. And wait. And then they give you the move that makes you *think* something is happening: they call your name and lead you to an examining room. So off I go down a maze of hallways until I reach "Exam room 5". I am told "have a seat and the doctor will be with you in a moment". I waste five minutes just looking around the room, reading the stuff on the walls about the doctor and how he specializes in rhinoplasty and skin peels. When I realize that I am going to be in there for a while, I look for reading material. I find exactly 1 magazine: an issue of Audubon. Audubon!? But I pick it up and start reading, because I am bored to death. And I must admit, I read an interesting article about some indian goose whose migratory path takes them over the top of Mt. Everest. Finally the doctor comes in at 4:10 PM. I tell him about my snoring and gasping for air while I sleep. He checks my nose with some light, tells me I have a deviated septum (which you can tell by looking at me from 50 ft. away), looks down my throat and tells me that I have to go to a sleep disorder center. This is a place where you make an appointment for overnight and they hook you up to a billion electrodes and watch you sleep. Based on the report from the sleep disorder center, I will have some type of surgery. If there is no sleep apnea, the doctor will just fix my deviated septum. If I do have sleep apnea, they will fix the septum, plus take out my tonsils, trim away (?) some of the soft tissue in the back of my throat, and even possibly take OUT (?!?) my uvula. Hmmm, I wonder if I'll still have a gag reflex? It's too bad I'm married.... and straight. I could have been a legend! Anyway, it takes the doctor all of about 6 minuets to examine me and tell me this stuff (with the aid of a 70's style brochure called "Snoring and Sleep Apnea: Breathing problems while you sleep"). I have no idea what they charge for that visit but it literally was 6 minutes of the doctor's time. And it was close to an hour of my time. It's a racket I tells ya!

And I would let the story end there if my wife wasn't a doctor. And from the other side of things I know that her office books 6-7 patients an hour. Because the insurance companies and HMO's have squeezed the reimbursement amounts so much that they have to move those people through like cattle just to make any money at all. I know you're saying "boo hoo, poor doctors". But its really true. Due to the way that healthcare in this country is run it is difficult for practices to make money except for high volume of patients. So remember that next time you're waiting in a doctors office reading an Audubon magazine.

Regarding that article about the indian goose. There were two things thing that I found really interesting about it. First was the theory about why the stupid geese just don't fly AROUND Mt. Everest instead of climbing so high to get over it. Scientist surmise that bird's migration paths are marked by visual clues, smells, geomagnetic effects in the brain and a number of other things. This particular species of bird has been around for millions of years. They think that when this bird first started making this migration that the land it flew over was flat. That they began migrating before the tectonic plates rammed together to shoot up Mt. Everest. And because mountains form so slowly, it accomodated the bird's evolution allowing them to continue to fly the same route while they adapted to the altitudes.

The second thing that was interesting about these birds was the WAY they evolved. They have sacs in their bodies that hold inhaled air. So they basically get two breaths for every one inhalation. I'm sure that I've explained both of these points wrong, so why don't you follow the link - The High Life - to read the article yourself.