You have to wait three months to finally get an appointment, and then when you’re there, the appointment is done in eight minutes.
When you leave, you have a prescription in hand, but you still barely have any clue as to what’s happening, and on top of that, the bill you’re supposed to pay is $400 (USD) higher than what you expected.
There’s a so-called facility fee on it, but nobody mentioned it, so you got a nice little surprise there. It’s very much obvious that the system is rigged against you; so how can you, the patient, even trust it in the first place?
It’s the small moments stacked on top of each other that kill trust. The doctor rushing you out of the office, the test result you don’t quite understand, the referral that disappears, the costs that come out of nowhere, etc.
It seems that healthcare isn’t something you can rely on; it’s something you need to survive.
Trust in Healthcare Usually Breaks Down Slowly
What is trust? How does it work in your everyday life?
Think about it – it’s hard to define, but it comes from small moments where someone truly listens to you and explains things in a way that you can know what’s going on. If we’re talking about healthcare specifically.
In practice this means that you’d instead have a doctor to talk to you as if you’re a human being instead of just being another number or case. They won’t interrupt you or stand high above you. Not will you get those hard-to-understand/confusing answers to your very basic questions which will raise even more questions instead of providing help.
If this is the way things go, then you have no reason not to trust the system.
Unfortunately, most people will say their experiences were the complete opposite of this. Imagine being out of your mind with worry, and someone tells you that you have to wait months for an appointment. It clearly shows you’re not important to anyone.
Plus, waiting makes you even more worried, and it can also make the symptoms worse.
And even when you manage to get to the appointment and take care of that, you have the administrative side of things to worry about. It makes no sense that part of getting well is fighting with your insurance because they denied your claim or figuring out which specialist is in the network, but there you go.
That’s how our healthcare system seems to work.
The Main Reasons Patients Stop Believing the System Works
So, what pushes people over the edge? Reporters uncovering scandals and a victim having to hire a medical provider sexual misconduct attorney doesn’t help, but for the most part, it’s not anything this dramatic.
It’s the seemingly little things you have to deal with over and over until you finally make your peace with the fact that this is simply how it is.
Long Waits
You’ve been coughing for 3 weeks, and it’s not getting better.
You call your doctor to let them know what’s happening, and they tell you they’re not available for a month or two. To you, this sends a very clear message that you’re not important.
While it’s true that the healthcare sector is very understaffed, being ignored isn’t easy, especially when you start getting anxious about the symptoms.
Rushed Appointments
You’ve been waiting forever, and now you finally get to see the doctor. Except they’re looking at their laptop the entire time, and they interrupt you before you can finish explaining what’s wrong. A few minutes in, and the appointment is already done.
Seriously, what’s the point? Will you even show up for a follow-up?
It would seem that Google and the likes of ChatGPT took a lot more interest in your symptoms.
Confusing Costs
Healthcare isn’t free. Well, here in the U.S., at least.
If you’re in, say, Germany or Spain, then it is. Anyway, Americans are used to paying medical bills, but unless you know exactly what you’re paying for, it all starts to look sketchy.
Insurance explanations are intentionally confusing, and your prescription costs $10 in this pharmacy and $80 in that one. Why? Nobody knows. The whole thing seems unfair, because it is.
Medical Errors and Negligence
Everyone makes mistakes, but when a medical professional makes one, that could end up in tragedy. So they can’t really afford to make them. But even though it’s logical this would be the ceiling of the issue, the ACTUAL ceiling is how the system treated those mistakes afterwards.
This is why you’ll often see hospitals – trying to avoid expensive lawsuits – not admit to any mistakes and try to deflect your concerns by providing vague non-admiting answers and try to cover things up. No one wants a scandal, sure, but they also aren’t eager to lose hundreds of thousands, if not millions because of one doctor’s mistake.
And this is extremely hard on all patients, regardless of their intentions.
Conclusion
It’s true that some people are demanding or dramatic, and some of them really ask too much of everyone around them, including medical professionals.
But this article wasn’t about them.
It was about the average Joe, who couldn’t get an appointment on time, and then when he did, he got slapped with a bill so high his head turned. He knows the system isn’t built for him; not because he’s a cynic, but because he sees how he’s being treated.
