Lack of Sleep Catching Up and A Visit to the Clinic

Posted by Chris on Feb 2, 2010 in Diabetes Awareness | 0 comments

My lack of sleep over the past few weeks is finally starting to catch up on me. I seem to always be dragging and not at full strength. I am getting a lot of work done and staying focused on my work, but as soon as I step away from my desk, I can’t seem to funcition. So I guess it is good for business, but not good for personal. However, I will need to rest up a bit because I am a tad bit sick.

Last week Amanda’s mom was a little sick with a cold and sore throat, guess who caught it? That’s right I did. The other night I was starting to feel a little stuffy and like a sinus cold was coming on because there was a big drop in temperature, so that was normal for me. Then on Sunday night my ear started to feel like it needed to pop, and when I woke up yesterday morning it felt that same way. I was told to try some Claritin D because it was probably just my sinuses acting up. When I woke up this morning and felt even worse, throat hurt more, ear felt more clogged, I decided to go to the clinic. This is where the adventure began.

I am without health insurance right now, I am in the process of getting Cobra, but that’s a whole other story by itself, being held up because my former employer isn’t playing very nice with me and my insurance provider to smooth the process, that’s a different story in itself. So I called around to see how expensive different clinics were and they all averaged about $100-$150. I then came across the CVS Minute-Clinic. It was only $65, so why not go there. Let’s first discuss this name, should be more like CVS 60 minute-clinic to get seen.

After waiting for nearly an hour, I was finally seen by the person, not sure what her credentials were. I explained the situation, so she checked my throat and my ears. She then proceeded to open up an operations and procedures binder and started asking me yes / no questions, like she was just going down a checklist of things I could have done on WebMD. After about 5-10 minutes of that she started to collection some information from me. Once I told her I was diabetic, she instantly started to freak. “Well, I have to follow different procedure since your diabetic, I have to refer you out to another clinic, I can’t prescribe anything for you because you have diabetes.”

She made a phone call to ac colleague I guess and they decided to refer me to an MD Now clinic in Boca Raton. Guess what, I called that place this morning and it was $130, exactly why I didn’t want to go there in the first place. After about a total of 90 minutes inside CVS I said, I’m not paying for this visit because you’re referring me somewhere else and I didn’t’ get anything out of the visit, and she agreed and said she wouldn’t charge, finally something good out of that place.

I went over to the MD Now and signed in and was asked for my insurance cards. “I don’t have insurance, I’m paying out of pocket.” Receptionist replies with, “Ok that will be $130 and additional fees for any services or tests ran during the visit, I can take your payment now, credit or debit.” Well, ok good day to you too. So I paid the $130, even though I was trying to avoid that, but no options here. I only waited about 5 minutes there and was brought back and was speaking with the doctor within minutes. So this is what I paid $130 for.

Sinus issue going on with your ear, take Mucinex D to loosen it up. It looks like it could be turning into an infection so here’s a prescription for amoxicillin. The best part about it was that I got the prescription for free from Publix (grocery store) because they give free generic prescriptions for up to 14 days. I was able to save money there which helped out, but still out $130.I guess it is worth it to have that piece of mind to know exactly what the issue is. Still sucks though because I can barely hear out of my right ear and feels like I have been flying for 24 hours without being able to pop my ear.