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Unless your doctor retires.
Three physicians in Roy's primary care / internist practice have taken early retirement in the past two years, citing difficulties with Medicare / Medicaid. He says the wait for appointments is longer now and the wait in the office is longer as well. I look ahead to even more regulation in the years to come, plus the bulge in the python that is the baby boom, and can't see a happy outcome.
The gallows humor of my quip about my own health plan -- eat well, exercise, sty healthy as long as possible and then drink myself to death -- isn't sounding quite so funny to me today. I think I'll book a full physical and assessment for early in the new year and see how I'm doing. I picture myself having an old age like those of my great-grandparents' generation -- no medical care to speak of and a gentle fading away at home without a lot of fuss, feathers, and tubes. Except, of course, that the family safety net is no longer there. Well, perhaps I'll be like Aunt Bert -- climb the steps to my third floor bedroom one night, at age 96, and come down feet first in the morning.
I wonder whether I can include "nothing but palliative care" in an advance directive for the possibility that I might get placed in a long-term care facility. (*shudder*) I will have to ask my attorney when I rewrite my will in the next couple of weeks.
Three physicians in Roy's primary care / internist practice have taken early retirement in the past two years, citing difficulties with Medicare / Medicaid. He says the wait for appointments is longer now and the wait in the office is longer as well. I look ahead to even more regulation in the years to come, plus the bulge in the python that is the baby boom, and can't see a happy outcome.
The gallows humor of my quip about my own health plan -- eat well, exercise, sty healthy as long as possible and then drink myself to death -- isn't sounding quite so funny to me today. I think I'll book a full physical and assessment for early in the new year and see how I'm doing. I picture myself having an old age like those of my great-grandparents' generation -- no medical care to speak of and a gentle fading away at home without a lot of fuss, feathers, and tubes. Except, of course, that the family safety net is no longer there. Well, perhaps I'll be like Aunt Bert -- climb the steps to my third floor bedroom one night, at age 96, and come down feet first in the morning.
I wonder whether I can include "nothing but palliative care" in an advance directive for the possibility that I might get placed in a long-term care facility. (*shudder*) I will have to ask my attorney when I rewrite my will in the next couple of weeks.
