[smokey_the_bear]

We had kaiser for years, and it was fine. I was able to receive care for pregnancy, stitches, vaccinations, etc with little hassle and mostly reasonable billing.

Then we moved. Omg, I can’t even get appointments to get a rash looked at, or a sinus issue, or vaccinations. And most of those are pediatric issues! My son minorly broke his arm, and didn’t even need a cast and I got thousands of dollars in bills from four different companies.

[tptacek]

The trick in a lot of places is to start routine care at your providers urgent care clinics, which are often staffed with NPs instead of physicians; the NPs at those clinics are plugged directly into your family medicine provider. It takes a couple weeks to schedule appointments with doctors in our practice (especially our specific doctors), but I can be in and out of the clinic in under 30 minutes on no notice. It's not a bad system (aside from billing, which is a catastrophe).

[yencabulator]

> [...] routine care at [...] urgent care [...]

I think that says it all. That's a broken system you're just gaming & claiming nothing's wrong.

[tptacek]

I'm assuming you believe "urgent care" means "the emergency room". It does not.

[yencabulator]

I am aware of the difference between "urgent" and "emergency". But when "routine" implies "urgent", something has gone wrong.

[johndevor]

Sorry I don't follow, what did moving have to do with it? Did you have a plan that was valid in only a certain state?

[deathanatos]

Kaiser is not nation-wide. I had it too, in CA. They are excellent. They're not an option where I've moved too, and the alternatives are not as good, thus far.