Anyway, I was scheduled for my regular three month diabetes checkup with my family doctor. I am very careful about keeping these appointments and I carry a notebook with all my medical information including test results, appointment notes, medicine lists, etc. And so I was rather surprised when I received a telephone call telling me that I should come in earlier to spend about 30 minutes with the new Medicare Wellness Nurse.
Now I never knew there was such a person and I had no idea why she needed to see me. I see my doctor regularly and I check their portal to make sure all of their records are correct. As it turns out, this is a new position that is now required my Medicare and Obama Care. I guess there must be a reason this is needed, but I don't know what it is.
So I kept my appointment. She was supposed to take my blood pressure and weigh me which was done by my doctor's nurse about 30 minutes later. Then she wanted to know about which meds I was taking. Incidentally, all of this was already available on their portal which both my doctor and his nurse checked later.
I was asked to name all the specialists that I had seen in the past year. Now some of that was new because, unfortunately, their portal only includes reports from doctors in their network. And most of my doctors are not in their network, so I guess at some level that information might have been of valuable. But since they aren't in the same network, their reports still won't be there unless the specialists sent a written report. It is interesting that on my wife's portal many of her blood tests and the fact that she has a pacemaker aren't listed because those doctors weren't in the same network. Now I like the idea of the portals but since there are so many different ones, what good does it do for your family doctor. You think Medicare and Obama Care might have thought about that problem. But then who expects them to come up with something that makes sense
The next part of my visit was answering a series of Medicare questions. Have I fallen? Do I exercise? Do I eat a balanced diet? Do I eat junk food? Do I have trouble walking? Can I do steps? Do we have handicap bars in our house? Do we have throw rugs? Is our home safe? Have I felt depressed in the last month? Do I have trouble hearing? Do I turn the television louder than normal? If I had been a woman I would have been asked if I experience any incontinence, but for some reason they don't ask men that question. Maybe they feel it is too embarrassing for a female nurse to ask a man that question. I don't know. While answering the questions I couldn't help but think that it would be easy to give a wrong answer. Do I ever eat junk food? Hmm.
But the visit wasn't over. I had two tests to go. For the first one I was asked to get out of my chair, walk outside the room to where the nurse had moved, touch her hand, then return to my seat. I was timed doing this.
For the final test I was to answer a number of questions. I was told that this would start by being asked to repeat three words, then answer questions and then repeat three words. I repeated the three words correctly - my new hearing aids worked! Then I was asked what year it was, what month it was and what day of the week it was. Now I new those answers but if I didn't, there was a calendar on the wall right in front of me and I could have easily gotten the answers from that. Then I was asked to repeat the three words once again. That I wasn't expecting since I thought repeating the words was a hearing test and not a memory test. I was expecting new words to repeat, maybe at different volumes. But I was in trouble. I hadn't even thought about memorizing those stupid three words. I lucked out on remembering two of the three, but I had the third one wrong. So I am in trouble - Medicare now has me on the way to dementia. Maybe they are correct. Actually I'd like to forget about the entire experience.
So I've met the new Medicare Wellness Nurse and I failed. I guess there must be a reason for this new position. Maybe it's to take the pressure off the doctor and his nurse who could and have done most of the same things in the past.. Maybe it is to catch important changes in people. I don't know, but I do know it cost my family practice another employee and another office. I hope it is worth the additional expense. But then what does it matter. It can just add to the national debt and make Medicare go bankrupt a few years sooner.
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