I’ve been trying to find a psychiatrist for one of my kids. I looked up providers that take my insurance, but all the doctors are listed individually so you have to cross reference them by address and phone number to figure out which practice they’re at.
Then I started calling places and it took eight different phone calls to find a single place that was actually taking new patients, despite having filtered for that in my insurance’s provider search. Almost two hours straight of calling places, navigating phone menus, and getting told “no we can’t help you.”
The one that is actually taking new patients and will actually accept our insurance? The earliest they can see my kid is six weeks from now.
How is someone with anxiety and depression supposed to do all of this? Especially if they’re not as lucky to have the spare time in the middle of the day to do it?
How is someone with anxiety and depression supposed to do all of this?
I got lucky. I called my primary out of desperation, after hopelessly trying to sift through which places take what insurance and if those places are even any good. He referred me to a psychiatrist (who I got to see after only a few weeks delay and several follow up calls), who pointed me at a referral service for intensive outpatient. That initial psych I didn’t like but everyone since has been great. (Previous attempts at self-help have landed me with pill mills and hacks.) It’s just that a year later, I’m still deep in the shit, have been denied disability twice (they never even talked to me), and eventually the mortgage company is going to stop playing nice… and I’ll end up with nothing.
As the saying goes, I’m in this post and I don’t like it.
I’ve been trying to find a psychiatrist for one of my kids. I looked up providers that take my insurance, but all the doctors are listed individually so you have to cross reference them by address and phone number to figure out which practice they’re at.
Then I started calling places and it took eight different phone calls to find a single place that was actually taking new patients, despite having filtered for that in my insurance’s provider search. Almost two hours straight of calling places, navigating phone menus, and getting told “no we can’t help you.”
The one that is actually taking new patients and will actually accept our insurance? The earliest they can see my kid is six weeks from now.
How is someone with anxiety and depression supposed to do all of this? Especially if they’re not as lucky to have the spare time in the middle of the day to do it?
That’s the fun part… they don’t want your using these services so they make it a pain to get it done…
They do this after we got promised that private medicine will avoid this exact issue since it is so “efficient”
It’s efficient at denying you care
an efficient way to kill people*
Excellent summary, it’s a nightmare. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this and your kid is struggling having to wait.
I got lucky. I called my primary out of desperation, after hopelessly trying to sift through which places take what insurance and if those places are even any good. He referred me to a psychiatrist (who I got to see after only a few weeks delay and several follow up calls), who pointed me at a referral service for intensive outpatient. That initial psych I didn’t like but everyone since has been great. (Previous attempts at self-help have landed me with pill mills and hacks.) It’s just that a year later, I’m still deep in the shit, have been denied disability twice (they never even talked to me), and eventually the mortgage company is going to stop playing nice… and I’ll end up with nothing.
As the saying goes, I’m in this post and I don’t like it.