We're not surprised when the 911 ambulance takes you to your town's hospital. After all, it's your town's hospital, right? What you may not know is that once you're checked in there you can't go to any other hospital. That's right, even if you've had the same procedure done at a hospital just outside your town's border less than two years ago, you can't go back to your old doctor. No matter how incompetent the doctor is at your town's hospital, you're trapped.
This was a surprising revaluation I just learned when a family member suffered a broken hip. Fortunately it appears this will turn out fine but I know of another case where the surgeon used the wrong size hardware and the entire operation had to be done over weeks later. I'm sure you can appreciate all of the pain and suffering involved with having TWO operations instead of one.
I'm sure this policy was created to protect the smaller, less qualified hospitals from losing all of their customers to the bigger, newer facilities but the price is one we all pay by our ignorance. It's unfair and it's not right. Until the laws get changed we're all facing this situation.
These are the little surprises awaiting all of us in American healthcare today.
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