I am in need of a new psychiatrist. For the last 8 years, ever since moving to the Baltimore area, I've had a very very VERY hard time finding good doctors. I'm not just talking about psychiatrists, this has been a problem with all doctors. I don't know if it's just the area, or changes to insurance coverage, or something else entirely, but my experiences have been horrendous.
For example, at one point I was in need of a new sleep doctor to manage my narcolepsy. I couldn't continue with my old one because the office staff never answered the phone and never returned messages. The only appointment I could get within 3 months was for a doctor 50 miles away who had a couple really bad reviews online. When I met with him, he refused to fill my existing prescription unless I scheduled another appointment with him first. The first thing he said when he walked in the room is that I drove really far to see him and he wondered if i was ever going to come back. He ultimately wrote the Rx after I caved to him, but the Rx he wrote didn't have a quantity, # refills, or his phone number on it so I couldn't even fill it.
Another example was a psychiatrist I saw a few years ago. I actually liked the psychiatrist, but the office staff was unbearable. The only (and I mean ONLY) way you could get them to pick up the phone was to call 3 times in a row. They definitely weren't too busy. The two receptionists would just sit there and chat while the phone rang off the hook. My doctor ended up giving me her direct line after acknowledging how bad the staff is there. She ultimately left that practice and I wasn't able to find out where she went because of the non-compete agreements they're forced to sign.
I had a general practitioner reuse to do bloodwork to check for bleeding in my esophagus after my esophagus was lacerated during a trip to Amsterdam. This was a Maryland doctor, and the suggestion of getting bloodwork came from my uncle who's a GP in Tennessee. The MD doctor's excuse for not writing the script for bloodwork was that I had had bloodwork done too recently... Not an insurance concern. His argument was that I'm creating unnecessary burdens on the medical system...by doing 1 single lab follow-up. He also interjected a political comment which was wholely unprofessional and unrelated to my medical needs.
When it comes to psychiatry, it seems things really took a turn for the worse with the changes that came with from obamacare. Now, there's no copay at all for psychological services. This sounds great at first, but what it has turned into is a license for every single doctor to demand i see them every single month or they will withhold my medicine. They only write 30 days scripts now, no matter how long I've been on my medicine and how stable I am on it. I'm not on anything controlled or addictive in any way for the record. It's not even expensive, it's dirt cheap. And it works, hence why i haven't changed it. But if i don't see these doctors every single month, they will not fill my Rx at all.
I realize some of their patients may be unstable or out of touch with reality, but that isn't me at all. I've never been hospitalized. I don't have a track record of problems. I have multiple degrees and have been working full time since graduating from grad school. I'm happily married and own a house and a rental property. This is about as normal as it gets. So why do doctors treat me like I'm a threat to society or something? Why do they take advantage of patients like this? Before I moved to Baltimore, I never had any problems with doctors. No problems getting appointments, no problems getting through to office staff, virtually no problems with doctors competence or bedside manner.
This brings me to my current situation. I've been seeing a psychiatrist who i don't particularly like (he does the things noted above), because I don't know where else to go and I need my medicine. The last telehealth appointment I was supposed to have with him I missed due to a really bad migraine. It was entirely my fault, and I told the receptionist that. But they refuse to refill my 30 Day script until i see him again, even though I've been out of medicine for a week. They didn't respond to 2 pharmacy requests for a refill over the last week, nor did they even contact me to say they won't fill it without an appointment. They just ignore it all unless you call them. This is par for the course around here.
I'm so tired of this nonsense with doctors. I've turned to Johns Hopkins for all my other doctors, because they're the lesser of the evils. And generally speaking, JHU doctors are competent, whereas I have many many experiences of gross incompetence with other local doctors. The problem with Hopkins psychology department is that they do not take normal appointments. They use some kind of lottery system in which ever ~30 days they open up an unknown amount of new appointments to the public, and signups for appointments are first come first serve. They do not schedule beyond 30 days, the system doesn't "refresh" new appointments on any particular schedule that could be predictable, and every time I try calling for an appointment they're already filled. This just seems crazy to me. Of all medical fields, psychology should be the LAST one to be run this way.
So what can I do? Whenever I try to research a good doctor online, I get nothing. If I need to find a good barber or a good body shop or a plumber, I can always find some amount of customer reviews on the local offerings. They may not always be reliable reviews, but its something. This is not true with the medical field. Somehow doctors and other medical professionals are able to skirt this system entirely. They essentially have zero footprint online - reviews, websites, contact info, photos, nothing. Even very good doctors with excellent reputations have no online records. There has to be some system they use to erase this data. It's statistically impossible for every doctor to have no online footprint just by happenstance.
The point of this post is really just to see if there's some magical system that I'm missing, that I haven't discovered yet, which enables patients to find good, reliable, and trustworthy doctors. Is there some kind of private review site? How does everyone else do it? The crapshoot tactic doesn't work. I've been doing that for nearly a decade.
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
For example, at one point I was in need of a new sleep doctor to manage my narcolepsy. I couldn't continue with my old one because the office staff never answered the phone and never returned messages. The only appointment I could get within 3 months was for a doctor 50 miles away who had a couple really bad reviews online. When I met with him, he refused to fill my existing prescription unless I scheduled another appointment with him first. The first thing he said when he walked in the room is that I drove really far to see him and he wondered if i was ever going to come back. He ultimately wrote the Rx after I caved to him, but the Rx he wrote didn't have a quantity, # refills, or his phone number on it so I couldn't even fill it.
Another example was a psychiatrist I saw a few years ago. I actually liked the psychiatrist, but the office staff was unbearable. The only (and I mean ONLY) way you could get them to pick up the phone was to call 3 times in a row. They definitely weren't too busy. The two receptionists would just sit there and chat while the phone rang off the hook. My doctor ended up giving me her direct line after acknowledging how bad the staff is there. She ultimately left that practice and I wasn't able to find out where she went because of the non-compete agreements they're forced to sign.
I had a general practitioner reuse to do bloodwork to check for bleeding in my esophagus after my esophagus was lacerated during a trip to Amsterdam. This was a Maryland doctor, and the suggestion of getting bloodwork came from my uncle who's a GP in Tennessee. The MD doctor's excuse for not writing the script for bloodwork was that I had had bloodwork done too recently... Not an insurance concern. His argument was that I'm creating unnecessary burdens on the medical system...by doing 1 single lab follow-up. He also interjected a political comment which was wholely unprofessional and unrelated to my medical needs.
When it comes to psychiatry, it seems things really took a turn for the worse with the changes that came with from obamacare. Now, there's no copay at all for psychological services. This sounds great at first, but what it has turned into is a license for every single doctor to demand i see them every single month or they will withhold my medicine. They only write 30 days scripts now, no matter how long I've been on my medicine and how stable I am on it. I'm not on anything controlled or addictive in any way for the record. It's not even expensive, it's dirt cheap. And it works, hence why i haven't changed it. But if i don't see these doctors every single month, they will not fill my Rx at all.
I realize some of their patients may be unstable or out of touch with reality, but that isn't me at all. I've never been hospitalized. I don't have a track record of problems. I have multiple degrees and have been working full time since graduating from grad school. I'm happily married and own a house and a rental property. This is about as normal as it gets. So why do doctors treat me like I'm a threat to society or something? Why do they take advantage of patients like this? Before I moved to Baltimore, I never had any problems with doctors. No problems getting appointments, no problems getting through to office staff, virtually no problems with doctors competence or bedside manner.
This brings me to my current situation. I've been seeing a psychiatrist who i don't particularly like (he does the things noted above), because I don't know where else to go and I need my medicine. The last telehealth appointment I was supposed to have with him I missed due to a really bad migraine. It was entirely my fault, and I told the receptionist that. But they refuse to refill my 30 Day script until i see him again, even though I've been out of medicine for a week. They didn't respond to 2 pharmacy requests for a refill over the last week, nor did they even contact me to say they won't fill it without an appointment. They just ignore it all unless you call them. This is par for the course around here.
I'm so tired of this nonsense with doctors. I've turned to Johns Hopkins for all my other doctors, because they're the lesser of the evils. And generally speaking, JHU doctors are competent, whereas I have many many experiences of gross incompetence with other local doctors. The problem with Hopkins psychology department is that they do not take normal appointments. They use some kind of lottery system in which ever ~30 days they open up an unknown amount of new appointments to the public, and signups for appointments are first come first serve. They do not schedule beyond 30 days, the system doesn't "refresh" new appointments on any particular schedule that could be predictable, and every time I try calling for an appointment they're already filled. This just seems crazy to me. Of all medical fields, psychology should be the LAST one to be run this way.
So what can I do? Whenever I try to research a good doctor online, I get nothing. If I need to find a good barber or a good body shop or a plumber, I can always find some amount of customer reviews on the local offerings. They may not always be reliable reviews, but its something. This is not true with the medical field. Somehow doctors and other medical professionals are able to skirt this system entirely. They essentially have zero footprint online - reviews, websites, contact info, photos, nothing. Even very good doctors with excellent reputations have no online records. There has to be some system they use to erase this data. It's statistically impossible for every doctor to have no online footprint just by happenstance.
The point of this post is really just to see if there's some magical system that I'm missing, that I haven't discovered yet, which enables patients to find good, reliable, and trustworthy doctors. Is there some kind of private review site? How does everyone else do it? The crapshoot tactic doesn't work. I've been doing that for nearly a decade.
Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
Last edited: