Y’all can afford doctors?
Financially? Yes (for now). In terms of Spoons (mental/physical energy to care about whatever conditions i likely have)? Nope.
What’s doctor? I don’t need them since I have a friend that just shows up whenever I feel sad. Idk why my parents never say hi to my friend, fucking rude.
Doctors don’t necessarily send patient information between each other, but many practices use connected platforms (i.e. My Chart) that a new provider could pull previous history from. Doctor shopping is when a patient goes to different providers/practices in hopes of getting multiple prescriptions (such as controlled substances like Vicoden or Percocet). Others mentioned maybe it’s pharmacy shopping which is when a patient takes prescription(s) to multiple pharmacies hoping for better prices or, in the case of controlled substances, trying to find one who won’t check the state’s controlled medication reporting system to verify they aren’t already getting it elsewhere.
More places seem to be switching over to a centralized/interoperable system for prescription information. In BC Canada we have
PharmaNet is a provincewide network owned and operated by the Ministry of Health. PharmaNet keeps a record of every prescription dispensed in B.C. community pharmacies and select hospital outpatient pharmacies.
In another Lemmy thread recently, someone mentioned that Australia has a national system for it. I think this might be it
https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/national-real-time-prescription-monitoring-rtpm
If I don’t get a happy ending during my yearly physical then I’m out.
Try asking around your network for a person who has had a similar affliction, or ask a doctor you know for a referral. Doctors don’t usually send patient information unless approved by the patient, in which case it’s usually by means of industry or national standard file formats or even hard copies of you’re going old school.
Lamo, look at this american!!
sobs because I need this answer too
You can either start with a general Internet search for doctors and read their reviews and check if they accept your insurance. Or start with your insurance company’s list of providers (which may be out of date) and then go read reviews for doctors. If possible, I highly recommend non-profit/university-affiliated doctors offices, and especially stay away from anything owned by private equity…they try to squeeze as much money out of patients and their employees as possible.
In the US, doctors aren’t allowed to share info about their patients with anyone without the patient’s permission. However, there are lists out there for people who try to circumvent controlled substance laws.
As in trying different doctors before you find one you like? Or is there another meaning I’m unaware of?
Yeah, the term usually refers specifically to moving between doctors to gain access to specific classes of medication that are restricted. In doing so, the “shopper” hopes to bypass limitations on how much of the drug they can get in a given time frame.
It’s almost always drugs that have recreational use and/or high addiction potential.
This feels too much like a post about how to get opioid prescriptions.
Or actual good drugs, like Adderall. Which is hard to do these days without a psychiatric recommendation. On a serious note If OP is struggling with opiates they should look into a Suboxone program. Plenty of clinics out there for that and it could get well save their life.
like all review sites nowadays folks can pay to hide bad reviews so good luck.
As John Mulaney explains, you use your favorite doctor finder website and sort by fewest stars.
I would assume they’re more pharmacy shopping. They’re looking for a doctor careless enough to not pay attention to their current medication profile so that they can unbeknownst to them because they didn’t care or look, send more prescription drugs to the pharmacy. I think doing so would get the medication to the pharmacy but I think the pharmacy would stop the patient from getting it filled by looking at their medication profile
No, sometimes it’s actual doctor shopping, because they know what their underlying problem is, and doctors refuse to treat it.
Example: a number of post-menopausal women know that the correct way to treat their symptoms is with hormone replacement therapy, which must involve an estrogen, a progesterone, and sometimes (often, really) a small amount of testosterone. Due to overblown studies from the 80s about certain risks from HRT–including breast and endometrial cancers, heart disease, etc.–a large number of doctors will flatly refuse to do HRT, or prescribe older/less effective treatments. So post-menopausal women with the means to do so will shop around for gynecologists until they find one that, first, takes their symptoms seriously, and second, is appropriately aggressive in treating it.
Also plenty of people with chronic illnesses need to find a doctor who at bare minimum understands that the disease exists and is willing to try to treat it.
And women looking for birth control or sterilization procedures (even when sterilization is a side effect such as treatment of endometriosis) will need to “shop around” to find a doctor willing to do so, especially if they are not married and even more if they have no offspring.
It isn’t like there’s an automatic cross reference any time you go to a doctor.
Where people usually get caught is at the pharmacies, since that’s where most places have their tracking. When it isn’t there, it’s via insurance, since even if pharmacies didn’t track prescriptions against a database, the insurance companies that pay for your meds already do.
Doctor shopping, on the level you’re asking about, it tends to be about finding providers that will just write a prescription with little or no difficulty. That’s the easy part of it. Doctors tend to either refuse to do pain management at all, or will only do it short term; but the ones that will do it short term tend to still be willing because they know they aren’t going to end up with hassles as long as they aren’t providing you with a steady stream. And, they also know if you’re “drug seeking” as opposed to treatment seeking, that you’ll get noticed at the pharmacy or insurance company.
Now, if you’re actually a chronic pain patient, you can find doctors that will act as your pain management, but it’s going to be rare as hell, and they’ll keep an eyeball on you. But you’ll usually get turfed to a pain “specialist”, and have to jump through whatever hoops they prefer.
It’s the same with things other than opiates, like benzos, ambien, etc that have a recreational use aspect, or get abused heavily/are addictive. But opiates are more or less the big doctor shopping target. Benzos are a close second, but GPs are much more likely to refer you to a psychiatrist that’s set up for handling the underlying issue than with opiates.
It has gotten a shit ton harder to sustain doctor shopping though, because there’s so many possibilities to get flagged now. You don’t even want to know how often chronic pain patients run into issues if they make the mistake of seeing a different doctor because their primary is out of town, or retires. And gods forbid you switch pharmacies when there’s a shortage of a medication that’s controlled like that. You can end up being refused anything without jumping through a million hoops.
I’ve seen people in their eighties flagged for pain meds. Like, who gives a fuck if they do become chemically dependent, they’re not going to be a long term risk for anything if they’re dealing with chronic pain in the first place. Too many co-morbidities.
No, doctors can’t pass info between each other without your written approval, due to HIPAA. If you’re drug seeking, you won’t sign the release forms.
They can’t if if they’re “difficult”.
