This is encouraging to hear:
People living in high-expenditure areas got more medical care than those living in lower-cost areas, judged by such measures as physician visits and cardiac tests. But when asked how they felt about their treatment, more patients living in lower-expenditure areas gave their quality of care top marks (9 or 10 on a scale of 0 to 10) than their peers in the high-priced parts of the country, by a margin of 63.3 percent compared to 55.4 percent.
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An alternate explanation might be that regions whose inhabitants get more care have higher incidence of somatoform disorders, and are unlikely to be happy with any amount of care they receive.
Bingo! The most unhappy peeople I have ever worked with are the well-to-do. The numbers of these people who are on multiple anti-depressants, stimulants, whose kids are on all sorts of psychoactive drugs, is absolutely appalling. Bitchy, demanding, argumentative, adn uterly disrespectful- all in the name of being well informed, commodity oriented consumers. Give me honest, hard working middle class people any day.
“As both a “big city” and rural nurse, a number of factors are in play. Big city nursing involves patients more up to date on the latest trends, PCP’s sending them for more tests, specialists and the patient is never satisfied.
Rural doctors are more apt to try conservative measures, spend more time talking with the patient and the patients trust their judgement. Some of them have had the same doctor most of their lives.
Big city nursing is when a patient says ” I have a headache- give me a Percocet” vs. ” Honey, get me a warm rag, my heads achin”. Guess what? A warm rag actually cures headaches and these are the people that live to be over 100, and maybe on 1-3 meds.
All the drug ads on TV (a pill for everything), magazine ads, medical websites advising ” diagnosing” ailments, make a doctors life quite difficult.Good Luck.
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