Once upon a time when one was ill or an annual visit was made, one saw one's Doctor, who when needed, prescribed some medication and that was it. Nowadays to see a Doctor is like winning the lottery. In most cases one is confronted by a NP, or similar, who will act like a Doctor, and when needed, order some medication from your favorite Drug Store, for pickup. What a cost saving for the insurance carrier! However, there are times when the very insurance requires the signature of a Doctor, MD, in order to pay for the drug involved. This is when the fun starts. It can take weeks before receiving the drug urgently needed; there is always a procedure to be followed. Communication messages sent, by the pharmacy, to the Doctor listed, are seldom answered promptly. The same applies to the sender, there is no follow-up, they are done once their message is sent, unless the patient questions the time delay.
The foregoing tells, without a doubt, that the needs of the patient are only a secondary consideration; there no longer is an urgency. Perhaps the time has come for AI do the jobs humans are no longer interested or capable of handling in a professional manner.
Similar faults exit where medical staffs, of all stripes, work like Robots, like ordering blood tests without understanding the consequences of the results. Case in point, an eGFR test showed a gross reduction (50%) in Kidney function in less than a year. No Urine Test was ordered checking for protein in the Urine. Lacking were also follow-up tests, for blood mineral levels, including rerunning the kidney filtration test using this time, not the flaky estimate method, but the more reliable multilevel (blood and plasma) GFR test.
"GFR is the glomerular filtration rate that provides an idea about the filtering function of the kidney. Therefore, an ideal filtration marker can be used to determine GFR. Moreover, GFR is important to diagnose many disease conditions associated with the kidney, including chronic kidney disease. On the other hand, eGFR is the estimated GFR, which represents GFR by means of a calculated value. Only a single blood test result is required for this calculation. Here, the mainly used parameter is the serum creatinine level. Therefore, the main difference between GFR and eGFR is the method of measurement."
"The determination of GFR requires both serum and plasma levels of creatinine, while the calculation of eGFR only requires a single blood test result. Hence, this is another difference between GFR and eGFR."
https://pediaa.com/what-is-the-difference-between-gfr-and-egfr/#GFR
The U.S.A. may have the most costly healthcare system, but it surely is not the best in the world.
"Where does the US rank globally in healthcare?
"The US health care system ranked last overall among 10
other high-income countries on key issues such as equity, access to
care, and outcome measures, according to a new report, Mirror, Mirror
2024: A Portrait of the Failing US Health System, by The Commonwealth
Fund."
https://insuredandmore.com/where-is-the-us-ranked-in-healthcare-in-the-world
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