You’re darned right, Beth. I’ll teach that Medicare doctor to ask nosy questions. Now that I think about it he kind of looked the part. He’s a tall young fellow with a full beard. I bet he could kick up his heels. Tony, I’m going to remember your Covid answer for next time. They didn’t push it though. They just accepted my decisions. The Doc said he could tell he didn’t need to ask me any questions about memory and instead asked if I had any questions for him. I think I’ll keep him. I liked him better than the last one.
Oh, YES, me too, @Vada Bloom ! My mom would not let me have the Red Ryder BB gun, but I think that I had some kind of rifle that shot caps or something. One time, we went camping for the weekend at a lake quite a ways from home, and i forgot my cowboy belt and holsters at the campground. My mom said they were not going all the way back just for me to get my cap guns and holster set. It was my favorite set, and I missed them for a long time, but never forgot another set anywhere after that.
Just to clarify, the gun question was on the annual Medicare Wellness Check-up questionnaire. It was not there last year, the first year I did the wellness check. If you’re not doing the Wellness Check-up, you probably won’t see the question.
So I had my doctor’s appointment on Tuesday, regular visit, not the wellness. The med tech told me that a lot of people are complaining about the eight page Medicare questionnaire and that it takes hour long appointments to go through it! I also discussed it with the doctor. I told her I won’t be doing the wellness visits anymore as the questions have gotten too intrusive. (I didn’t bring up the gun question. I guess we have to keep our gun ownership a secret now.) I told her I worked for the Federal government for 32 years and I don’t trust them and what they may do with the information. She said they’re just trying to identify potential problems to keep seniors safer. I told her that I trust her, which I do, and that I will, and always have, brought of any and all issues I have. She admitted it wasn’t a physical. So, maybe the doctors that are getting complaints will pass them along. We’ll see, but I still won’t see a need for a Medicare Wellness check. If they really cared about our well being, Medicare would pay for a real annual physical!
I do not remember any of my wellness checks that were 8 pages long or took an hour to complete, so maybe they are asking more questions now than what they have done before. I agree that it sounds invasive, but all of our medical information goes into a database anyway, so they are probably not asking anything that the government does not already have access to and is on file; so I am not going to worry about it. Perhaps it helps to stop misuse of health programs ? We always have home nurse visits from our medicare insurance providers (Humana up until January), and those take close to an hour, but they do actual physical checkups as well as ask about medical history. I don’t think that they have ever asked us if we have guns, but we would have just said we don’t, so I would probably not remember it anyway.
I think I mentioned the surveys they sent me online before my appointment. I completed several and each time they would send another one. There were 2 the morning of my appointment that I didn’t bother with. All together those could have been 8 pages or more. I wonder if there aren’t some differences in the ways that various doctors and medical conglomerates are handling Medicare. Everything possible seems to be done online. That’s ok for me but I bet it’s not for everyone.
This would have been my third Medicare Wellness check up. I had the initial in 2021, and then another last December. Yes. the questionnaire grew to eight pages just this year. It's just over the top nonsense like everything else. Everyone, doctors included, rely too much on computers to do their jobs. I feel a personal connection with my primary care doctor and she seems genuinely caring, but she, too, gets caught up in all the "rules." and a lot of it is CYA by the big health companies.
You do have to wonder why Medicare does not cover physicals so as to catch ailments when they are easier & cheaper to remediate and before too much harm is done. Today's corruption notwithstanding, the government wasn't trying to kill us when Medicare was established 60 years ago.
"It's for your own good." So they say, as they tie you down and rip you apart. "It's for your own good."