Welcome to the Parenting Roundabout podcasts for the week of May first, twenty twenty
three, from Catherine he Leco and a Mere Rhyth Nicole Heretics. Hello.
Every week we chat about what parents are talking, complaining, and obsessing about
right now. This week we're short one podcaster as Terry recuperates from surgery and
we force her to take a few days off, so we thought we'd look
back at some of our past discussions on encounters with sickness, health, and
healthcare. Today's chat is originally from twenty eighteen. Now. Lately, I've
had to choose new doctors a few times. We've been switching around insurances.
I think we're on our third insurance within about a year and a half,
and everyone has different choices to make, and so I'm trying to think of
different criteria for doctors. And I'm really really tempted to go to one that
has like all the availability, that's just opened seven days a week, they're
open late. They're one of these urgent care places that you can also choose
as your primary care physician. And even though I'm not sure it's the right
choice for us in terms of personnel, boy the idea of just being able
to go to the doctor whenever you want to is really appealing after so many
times of like being sick and calling and my doctor is closed today, and
my doctor is closed tomorrow, and if you're still sick on Friday, you
can come in, but only in these times. And so I thought we
would talk today a little bit about doctors and flexibility of hours. Is that
an important thing? Am I crazy to be choosing a doctor based on office
hours? Should? I? Are there so many things that are more important
than that? Or really, is being able to go to the doctor when
you're actually sick or hurt kind of an important thing? Katherine? I know
you've had some experience about doctors and availability. What's your thoughts on this?
Yeah, well I've had I've had the good extreme and the bad extreme.
So our family doctor that we've always had since we moved here. Um,
you know, when you call up for like a wild child appointment or whatever,
you might have to wait usually know more than a couple of weeks,
I would say, And that's not you know, that's fine because it's not
urgent, but if you ever need um, if you do need help urgently,
they're very good about getting you in um, you know, even on
weekends or whatever. You know, I've called up and woken up in the
morning and said, oh, I know I have pink ey like I can
feel it. I can feel it and call it up and they said,
can you you can come in in an hour. You know, like they're
they're really good that way, and sometimes it's a nurse practitioner, but I
totally that's fine. You know, they're they're great. But on the other
end of the spectrum, we have the orthodontist, which we basically didn't have
much choice in the practice. And well that's not true. We had one
practice that we had through our insurance and it was far away. It was
like a twenty five minute drive and you know, you have to go all
the time when kids have braces, you're there like feels like once a week.
So I was like, this is not going to fly. So I
did find another one that was closer, and then that one, basically the
orthodonist left and all the patients went had to go to a different practice that
was slightly farther away. It still wasn't like it as far as the first
one, so that was a step up. But this place they don't have.
They don't have appointments on Fridays, which all of the no school days
that my kids have are always on a Friday. They don't. They have
a few late afternoon appointments, so you can, if you're lucky, you
might be able to get one that's after school. But then the other day
they sent me a postcard that my kid needed to come in, so I
called up. The whole entire practice is closed down for the week in what
August, like when everyone needs to try to fit in appointments before school starts
and all of their patients are kids. If there's an orthodonis, like why
why why why aren't you closed? If you all need a vacation, take
it in September, Like why do you want to take it in August?
Anyway? Yeah, I just thought that was so dumb, Like, come
on, guys, think a little bit. Wow, that is Have you
found the same thing, Nicole? Um? Yeah, Orthodonis to the worst
a barrel? Yeah, really do. And it's like, why do we
have to come in every second or third week? Like it's just I get
that the bases have to be adjusted, but um, and it's the worst
time as possible, and of course, you know, always that window after
school has always taken so, um, you know, then our kids end
up missing out in school. Yeah, and uh, you know, I
think we had a conversation about this in the past about you know, wishing
for an orthodonis that kind of was like in a van that would just pull
up into the school parking lot. Actually have one of it's unfortunately not one
that we can use, but yes, they do that bus. I mean,
like, how amazing is that, you know to because the orthodonis literally
are the worst. They They're hours are horrible. Um, we really school
should contract with somebody to just like come into the nurse's office once a week
and just take all your kids that are in the school. Yeah, tighten
up the races and let them go. Yeah. But I think the doctor
that we've had that I've in terms of hours, that I've loved the most
was our husband, Christmas pediatrician. Now and of course two women doctors run
the practice, so they have these amazing hours because they themselves are parents and
females and understand that it's mostly the moms that are bringing in the kids and
you know, have these hours that suit you know, family life, like
they're open on Sundays and they're open, you know, really early in the
morning, starting at seven am, and then they have nights where they're open
until like nine pm. So it's amazing. And they have you know,
the two doctors, and they have all these nurse practitioners, so if you
can't get into your doctor, you're going to see a nurse practitioners, so
you can pretty much get in the same day that you call. And then
you know, they have the whole online service too. Yeah, Christians aged
out of them now, but yeah, see they were a great practice in
terms of timing, but for ourselves, what I find helpful now is just
the online Yeah, yeah, I love it. I use them all the
time. You know this um flu that I excuse me as I cough that
I've been trying to get over. It was so handy, um to just
to be able to call and get some some medicine sent to the pharmacy and
wow, yeah, I may have to try that. It's worth I mean
our insurance. They take our insurance, but even the cash pay if you
don't have insurance is totally reasonable for the service. It's amazing. I mean
you save hours of your life. Yeah, you know, waiting care exactly.
Oh yeah, our insurance company keeps sending us information about that, like
urging us to do it. So one of these days I'm going to have
something that's going to be appropriate for that, and yeah, maybe I'll already
do Well. That's the ultimate flexibility, isn't it to just be able to
talk to your phone and you know somebody's are always there, right, yeah,
or online and yeah, all right, Well maybe that's going to be
the answer eventually, and you'll actually go to somebody's office. If only they
could tighten braces your phone. Can you imagine that with the kids. Maybe
they teach kids how to do it, and then you go on the smartphone
with your orthodonis and they say no, turn a little bit to the right,
to the right. Sounds good. That would be awesome. That's it
for today's Sickness and Health Chat. Tune in tomorrow for another take on this
theme. We're always interested in what you have to say, so drop us
a comment on our website or Facebook page or Twitter. We'll find a set
round about the chat and the co