Well thank fuck
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@JanetJackson Yes! I do and I love it so much, and will never go back. I will come back and write more when I have time, but am also happy to answer questions.
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Ok, I’m back! I have employer-sponsored health insurance and been paying for and working with my direct primary care doctor for a few years now. I had a wonderful doctor for 23 years, then he retired early, because he couldn’t stand what HMOs had done to medicine. He said he couldn’t be a good doctor anymore, and he couldn’t stand being a bad doctor, so he quit.
Over the course of the next five years, I had a few different primary care doctors. They kept getting burned out and leaving. And as I was getting older, I wanted a doctor who knew me, who would be around for years to come, and that’s when I learned about director primary care.
The unlimited visits are amazing. These are the things I love:
- I have her cell phone number and can text or call if something is more urgent, or I can use the portal for less urgent things.
- She always responds, usually within a few hours.
- I have been able to send her pictures and get things diagnosed that way.
- I am usually able to get in the same day or next day.
- She spends 60-90 minutes with me (if I need it).
- She does the blood draws right there while we’re talking, so there’s no going to the lab and sitting and waiting again.
- I have never waited for her, not even for one minute.
Once when I had something going on on a Friday, I looked online for an appointment, and the next available one was Monday, so I booked it. She saw that I had a Monday appointment and reached out to me and said I should just swing by on my way home from work to get it looked at, so I did. That kind of proactive care is shocking after spending so many years in our healthcare system.
She has given me referrals for orthopedics, imaging, physical therapy, colonoscopies, mammograms…never had an issue getting scheduled or with insurance covering these things.
Most of the (annual) lab work is included in the subscription, but if I want other labs run, she can refer me to a lab or she will pass wholesale prices on to me. I just got a lead test (after getting a notice from the city that the pipe leading to our house has lead in it). It cost me $6 through her. I have not gone to a lab since working with her, because the wholesale prices are always less than my copay if I used insurance.
I think I save money this way. I had to go to urgent care with a suspected UTI, sat for a long time, was given a urinalysis, and my portion of that bill was almost $400. With her, I’m not even sure if she charges me for the urinalysis; if she does, it’s really inexpensive. I saw her last month, because of just feel crappy for a month. I saw her this month because of my arm tingling and falling asleep. It’s always something. I’m pretty sure if I did all these things through my insurance, I’d be paying more because of the deductible and copays.
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Wait what? How do you sign up for something like this?
I just did a search for “direct primary care” for my town and then looked for a convenient location and read bios and reviews.
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Thank you @GrayMatter @a_hardie @mountainmustache29 @darlingpants @JRA64 @Gdogg @Marcela @BiblioFeroz @Economista
Lots of different perspectives here and I appreciate them!
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Update to the washcloth saga!
I realized two things:
- That I frequently have 3+ wet washcloths because that’s how many Pipsqueak uses to cover her eyes when I help her shower in that room (1-2x a week, she sometimes chooses baths) . ETA so there’s definitely not enough places to hang them somewhere in the bathroom to dry
- that we never use the extra hook that we installed for the bathmat and I hung a small Ikea basket on it for the washcloths (which were previously being piled on the ground in the same location).
The basket is a bit too small, but for now it’s something! And it keeps my pretty new bathroom looking pretty for a while longer.
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Omg LOVE that wallpaper and the basket seems like a great mini hamper.
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So cute!
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I love the you have fun wallpaper in your pretty new bathroom! And that you found a solution.
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Why don’t trees that go dormant for the winter mold or rot?
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My understanding is that dormancy is like hibernation - things are very slow, but not stopped. Nutrition is still carried throughout the tree, etc, it’s just that the need is vastly reduced and so the carriage is slower.
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Cooooooooool
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mold and rot also are slower in winter, like a fridge/freezer, so they don’t need to fight it off as quickly
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They also literally form antifreeze and anti fungal molecules! Trees are so. Super. Fucking cool.
ETA and it depends the specifics on the tree, since “tree” is just a morphology grouping (how it looks) and nothing to do with the genetics of the group.
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Has anyone ever made french macarons? We buy them once in a while as a treat, and my toddler today asked me if we could make them at home. My initial answer was “of course not; they are too difficult to make,” but then I looked it up and… it doesn’t seem like total witchcraft? I’d just need to get almond flour and a piping thingy.
I have a stand mixer so am not intimidated by doing the meringue.
ETA I watched a video and now I’m a little intimidated
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You absolutely can make them at home! They’re a giant pain in the ass though, and probably not a very child friendly activity. Also you then have a truly ridiculous number of macarons, which is not a problem per se but
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This is VERY NEAT
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We made them and they looked terrible but they tasted right! We’re not big bakers and we may not have accurately planned for Denver altitude
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Do iiiittttt
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