Reply to Which country actually has the best healthcare system?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I know other countries have Mid level providers which cuts a lot of the cost. I'll give a couple examples.
Zofran is prescription only because it can interact with some heart medications. The obvious solution is to put it behind the counter and tell the pharmacist what medications you are on, then allow only a pharmacist to sell it. But no, a doctor has to get their cut.
UTI? A medical technician can easily diagnose this. A gram stain takes two minutes. If the urine shows gram-negative rods, it's almost certainly E coli and a pharmacist can prescribe the appropriate antibiotic. But no, again, in the US a doctor has to be involved, initial the lab report and get their money.[/quote]

I think this is kind of related: we recently took a trip to Spain. My daughter wasn't feeling great, so she and my wife went to a pharmacy down the street from where we were staying. She described her symptoms (nothing too serious, sore throat, headache, congestion, maybe a bit of a fever). The two women working behind the counter conferred for a second (the need to confer was mostly due to the language barrier, I think), and got her a couple of things to treat the symptoms. In and out in less than 10 minutes for not very much money. My daughter was feeling much better within the hour.

This obviously isn't serious medicine, but I can't imagine what a hassle that would have been for a foreigner traveling in the United States. Most pharmacies seem to be staffed by people who have only recently been introduced to the concept of a pharmacy. Every single interaction takes 20 minutes or more. [/quote]

Similar story in a remote part of a European country but with a type 1 kid who through no fault of his own found himself without insulin. We were panicking. But it was easy as could be. The pharmacy had insulin, we didn't need a prescription, and an entire month's worth cost $35. We even got a free consult with a nearby doctor to confirm that the doses were exactly the same.

I think about all the times I've been on the phone with my insurance company and pharmacy, jumping through bureaucratic hoops to refill a supply my kid can't live without because the the doctor didn't write the exact right thing on the prescription, or god forbid kid was traveling and needed to pick up monthly supply a week early...even though the diagnosis was years ago, and the dose was the same, and he will never NOT need this medicine. Absolutely absurd, this system. Just totally nonsensical.

(All that said...thank god for the medicine. Thank god.)[/quote]

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