Page 1 of 1 [ 9 posts ] 

markko
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 8 Dec 2010
Age: 63
Gender: Male
Posts: 107
Location: Wisconsin, USA

23 Mar 2011, 12:16 pm

First off, I'm male. I have no health insurance and needed a physical and some lab tests for a university class. My regular clinic wanted $800. Bull crap. I started calling around. I found a clinic that would do the whole thing for A LOT less. So, I made an appointment.

I got to the "family health clinic" and was the only one in the waiting room. As a registered nurse, I quickly recognized the telltail signs of a women's clinic...the birth control ads on the wall were the big giveaway. I got a physical and five lab tests done and got a followup appointment for my $60. My guess is it was a subsidized clinic, but so what? It pays to shop around for health care. If everyone in the USA did that, it would go a long way in reducing health care costs.


_________________
Starlings make great pets.


ikorack
Veteran
Veteran

Joined: 15 Mar 2009
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,870

23 Mar 2011, 1:59 pm

I'll keep this in mind for the future I think.



Dantac
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Jan 2008
Age: 46
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,672
Location: Florida

23 Mar 2011, 11:17 pm

they had you pee on a little blue strip? ;)



Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,739
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

25 Mar 2011, 12:34 am

Dantac wrote:
they had you pee on a little blue strip? ;)


A friend of mine (male) once peed on a test strip. The test result showed he was pregnant.
Presence of male hormones that appear with a successful sperm/egg fertilization, or some such thing, I suspect.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



ThatRedHairedGrrl
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2008
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 912
Location: Walking through a shopping mall listening to Half Japanese on headphones

25 Mar 2011, 4:39 am

Um, Kraichgauer, how long ago did your friend get his 'good news'?

Reason I ask is that hCG (the substance tested for in both doctors' and commercial pregnancy test kits), if it's found to be elevated in males, can be a sign of testicular cancer. I assume the clinic would have checked this out at the time, but it might be worth bearing in mind...


_________________
"Grunge? Isn't that some gross shade of greenish orange?"


Kraichgauer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Apr 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 47,739
Location: Spokane area, Washington state.

25 Mar 2011, 12:15 pm

ThatRedHairedGrrl wrote:
Um, Kraichgauer, how long ago did your friend get his 'good news'?

Reason I ask is that hCG (the substance tested for in both doctors' and commercial pregnancy test kits), if it's found to be elevated in males, can be a sign of testicular cancer. I assume the clinic would have checked this out at the time, but it might be worth bearing in mind...


Actually, he was working at Safeway at the time, and during a slow night, he and some other guys broke out a few pregnancy test strips, went out back, and peed on them. Each of them were diagnosed as pregnant. Being that was almost ten years ago by now, I doubt that my friend need fear any cancer of the balls, as he hasn't reported any complaints to me.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



ThatRedHairedGrrl
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2008
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 912
Location: Walking through a shopping mall listening to Half Japanese on headphones

27 Mar 2011, 10:45 am

Kraichgauer wrote:
ThatRedHairedGrrl wrote:
Um, Kraichgauer, how long ago did your friend get his 'good news'?

Reason I ask is that hCG (the substance tested for in both doctors' and commercial pregnancy test kits), if it's found to be elevated in males, can be a sign of testicular cancer. I assume the clinic would have checked this out at the time, but it might be worth bearing in mind...


Actually, he was working at Safeway at the time, and during a slow night, he and some other guys broke out a few pregnancy test strips, went out back, and peed on them. Each of them were diagnosed as pregnant. Being that was almost ten years ago by now, I doubt that my friend need fear any cancer of the balls, as he hasn't reported any complaints to me.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer


Fair enough. Maybe just a hormonal glitch. Everyone produces some of the hormones of the opposite sex, but producing them over certain small amounts can ring alarm bells...


_________________
"Grunge? Isn't that some gross shade of greenish orange?"


zer0netgain
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 2 Mar 2009
Age: 56
Gender: Male
Posts: 6,613

28 Mar 2011, 8:33 am

markko wrote:
I got a physical and five lab tests done and got a followup appointment for my $60. My guess is it was a subsidized clinic, but so what? It pays to shop around for health care. If everyone in the USA did that, it would go a long way in reducing health care costs.


Except you lost sight of the fact that someone SUBSIDIZED that clinic...likely taxpayers via a government program. I'm sure whatever money that clinic gets takes about 3-4 times the revenue extracted via taxation.



Bethie
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Jul 2010
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,817
Location: My World, Highview, Louisville, Kentucky, USA, Earth, The Milky Way, Local Group, Local Supercluster

28 Mar 2011, 8:40 am

zer0netgain wrote:
markko wrote:
I got a physical and five lab tests done and got a followup appointment for my $60. My guess is it was a subsidized clinic, but so what? It pays to shop around for health care. If everyone in the USA did that, it would go a long way in reducing health care costs.


Except you lost sight of the fact that someone SUBSIDIZED that clinic...likely taxpayers via a government program. I'm sure whatever money that clinic gets takes about 3-4 times the revenue extracted via taxation.


I don't mind taxes paying for health care for poor people-
you're right that HIM paying less didn't "reduce health care costs" so much as a penny-
it simply changed who paid them.


_________________
For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly, destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay.