Easy Breezy Healthcare

I have been feeling very lucky lately as I've been getting treatment for issues that led to a diagnosis of ADD. I don't say this to brag, but to raise the issue of health care and why having easy access to health care shouldn't just be a perk.


I started my current job last October after an internship in the same company but with different attorneys in different areas. Sometime around last June, the pressure to learn, to impress, all of that started lessening and as it did I struggled with my ability to focus. I had previously spent four years in a job that was extremely deadline oriented, and the work I'm doing now is very different. There is no set deadline. Once in a while I get a question that needs a quick answer, but often the instruction from my attorney would be to spend as much time as I needed on research because that's what I do best, and that's what he wants.

It's very hard for me to manage time, to focus on a task, and to work for 8 hours, especially in the office environment. So as time went on, I spent more and more time reading blogs, talking to people. Soon I was getting too far behind on work, constantly anxious about going in to work in the morning and having the morning sit-down with my attorney to go over what was going on. I was starting to fall back into serious depression and anxiety.

I've never gotten help for my depression and other problems before. But I decided I really needed to look at my options, because this kind of performance at work would get me in trouble eventually. It turned out under our mental health benefits I would get 8 free sessions with a therapist in the network, and I had to call an 800 number to get assistance.

I finally called one day, and it was so very easy. The people on the phone were very kind, very helpful, and they even called to set up an appointment with the therapist while I was on the line. Easy as that. I was so relieved that I was already able to focus on work a little more.

I recently needed to make a doctor's appointment to get some medication, on the recommendation of my therapist. I of course had to find out who was in my network, and my therapist recommended a doctor in particular, or any in her practice as an alternative. So I called and... none are taking new patients! ugh. My list of in-network doctors is not terribly long despite having really great insurance.

I have such anxiety over going to the doctor, and I am so often frozen at the prospect of doing things that require a series of possibly aggrivating and confusing steps that I have avoided seeing a doctor for a very long time. That is why my therapist recommended a particular doctor she knew to be very good and very caring, and why I was extremely anxious over finding a doctor I knew nothing about. I talked to my therapist and she called the doctor and asked if she would see me at her recommendation. She agreed to see me for the ADD.

This is how easy it should always be. Instead of stress over finding someone to take a new patient, instead of having to face a list of names of therapists and psychaistrists and just picking one, I benefitted from a system that made the process as easy as possible. I could get on with my work and my life without more stress than I was already dealing with.

I wonder how much productivity and working hours are lost when people are stressed about health care. Personally I believe that health care is a right, but for those who care more about the bottom line, how is this system any more beneficial to business than it is to the individual?

The only really frustrating aspect of my health insurance is the prescription drug plan. To push the mail order option for getting prescriptions. There is a different yearly maximum spending if mail order is used, and many prescritions are much cheaper even before my deductable is met.

Mail order does not work for a new prescription that is needed quickly. It does not work for finding the right medication for a mental health issue. I can't order 90 days of a medication and wait 8-10 days to get it when it is quite possible that in 2 or 3 weeks the doctor will adjust the dosage because it is largely a guessing game.

I've always been in favor of universal health care under a system that makes it as easy as possible for individuals. But lately the need for it has come home to me in a much more personal way.

Which I hope doesn't make me sound like the asshole I heard on the radio who was against "socialized" health care until his wife had a stroke and couldn't work and he suddenly realized people often need good health care the most when they are least able to earn it by getting lucky enough to have the right employer.