Migraines and other complaints

I finally gave in and made an appointment for my migraines, or whatever you want to call them. I could have been seen tomorrow as an 'acute' appointment. But these have been going on a while and I don't need to be seen tomorrow for them, it can wait. That appointment slot should be for someone who is sick and needs to be seen right away. Patients taking acute slots for something routine or chronic really irritated me when I used to work at the hospital. We would see patients that were booked as an acute for something that had been going on for months and the patient just then decided they wanted it taken care of. In my opinion, they've waited several months before wanting an appointment so they can wait one more week. So, when they take an acute slot and it happens to be the last one (those go fast ya know), when someone calls who is actually sick and needs medical care right away, end up going downtown to be seen.... which only wastes more money.

So, now that I'm talking about the abuse of military medical care, let me vent some more. lol. One thing that drives me crazy is people abusing appointments and the ambulance. Since most of the military personnel and families choose to go through Tricare Prime, they don't pay for a cent of medical care whether its on base or downtown. And for that reason, people make appointments for every little thing, seriously! Civilians may not go to the doctor right away for a sore throat or a runny nose because they have to pay for some of it..... but because the military does not have to pay out of pocket, they take advantage. If they wake up one morning with a sore throat, the first thing they typically do is call to make an appointment... before they even try to treat it at home. Not everyone is guilty of this though. I hardly go to the doctors. Last time I went was for my abdominal pain, and that pain went on for several months before I went to be seen. And we all know what the result of that was... a cholecystectomy. We had one patient call to be seen for accidentally inhaling a piece of pepper, like the seasoning. I couldn't help but laugh. We also had a patient walk up to the hospital for a sore throat... no biggie right? Well, he had to be seen downtown because it was after hours. But the airman didn't have gas for his car... so he expected the ambulance would take him to his appointment down. I guess the ambulance was a taxi service or something. The ambulance did end up taking him downtown for it, but he got into trouble by his first shirt afterwards. He's lucky there was no 911 calls while he was going downtown cause the paramedics took him and we only had one set of paramedics. On-call medical techs had to be called in as back-up, which happened to be me. Even though I have been tried and was a certified EMT, I would have panicked if there was a real 911 call.

Anyhow, enough complaining... I don't have to deal with that stuff right now. :)