Sorry Pogo but it's true.
Now it is fitting that Dr. Kildare won our poll because I think he is the epitome of what I call the "Yuppie doctor." We were forced to go to one in the neighborhood because you need a general practitioner to prescribe antibiotics and stuff when you have a cold and what not. There is this guy in the neighborhood that everyone goes to because he is a scrip writing machine. Now personally I never went to the doctor before I was married. I mean I did when I was in grammar school but not since then. When we were first dating my wife insisted that we both get check ups and full physicals. You see her mother was sure I was going to croak. You know a big fat pasty faced Irishman with a drink in his hand. Whenever my wife would call her mom late at night, her mom would say "Is he dead?" Now that's not nice.
Anyway it was pretty funny. The first time we went I was perfectly fine and she had a laundry list of stuff that we had to work on. You see I don't really believe in doctors. I think you should just have a glass of wine and go to sleep and you will feel better in the morning. But the wife insists on going to get antibiotics and stuff when she is sick. I just take cod liver oil and a good dump and I am usually good to go the next day. So we end up going to this yuppie guy.
Now he took over the old space of a guy that had been in the neighborhood ever since I was a kid. When we got in the waiting room there was about a million yuppie scum hipster dofus assholes in the waiting room. He saw us and then I found out why he was so popular. He wrote scrip like it was going out of style. Couldn't diagnose himself out of a paper bag but he could give you an Valium prescription toot sweet. So that worked. Anything more serious and we would go to a real doctor or the hospital emergency room you know?
So that was our situation until we get this letter in the mail. He has decided that he is going to become a "concierge" practice. He would no longer except run of the mill patients off the street. If you want his services you have to pay an annual fee if he is even going to see you. Like when the Giants charged you a seat license fee before you can even buy the fucking tickets. He wanted $2,500 a year right off the top if you were going to stay his patient. Then he said he would offer 24 hour a day service, house calls and bunch of other bullshit that sounded nice but there is no way he is actually gonna do it. Oh and he wasn't taking insurance. Otherwise he wanted you to find another doctor. What a pair of balls on this douchebag.
I think this guy is just getting his ducks in a row before Obamacare hits him. He figures if only 100 families agree to this bullshit he will have a nice little practice and he won't have to worry.
It will interesting to see what happens.
In the meantime I had already set up a hook with the old Italian doctor in the neighborhood. You in case the wife needs her antibiotics or has a cold or something. His receptionist is the mother of a guy I went to school with so I have an in and she can get to the head of the line.
Me, I am sticking with the cod liver oil.
4 comments:
I caught Dana Carvey on the viewer embedded in the back of the seat in front of me on the flight back from Paris. His bit on Brooklyn cardiologists was hilarious.
Your blood pressure is 180 over screwed.
"You're not 21, 22, 23 years of age no more. You gotta take care of yourself." And he keeps going. "You gotta understand. You're not 25, 26, 27, 2-" you know one of these people? "You're not 29, 30, 31, 32. You can't do the things you used to do. 'Cause you're not 35, 36, 37..." I FUCKIN' GET IT!
He says to me, "How many good years, how many good years you think you got left?" I go, "I don't know. Twenty?"
He goes, "I was thinkin' ten."
Makes the personal potato formaggio pizza I had for lunch feel a little heavier.
Hate to break it to you Ritmo but it's all in the genes. The right genes you can eat BBQ daily, wash it down with Jim Beam and die in your own bed at 90. The wrong genes and just looking at that cheese pizza is fatal. Unfair? You betcha. Like everything else.
Some genes are responsible for early cardiac disasters, and for people with them, like Carvey, everything they can do to keep their arteries from turning into stuffing is a good thing.
And then there are people at the other end of the spectrum.
For the rest of us, it pretty much comes down to the interplay between genes and how you treat the machine.
Concierge docs are here to stay IMO. Check out www.mdvip.com
It's owned by big private equity group, Summit Partners.
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