The Days after Injury - No Insurance and Some Tips in Finding Your Doctor
April 29, 2014 by texasflyer
I left my somewhat-cushy job with benefits a couple years ago to strike gold on my own. I began my own creative design firm, specializing in websites, logo, branding, apps, etc. I looked at individual insurance plans, yes, but at $350+/month I thought it was something I could forgo for the short-term. I had been to the doctor once or twice since I was 18 years old.
Since my injury occurred on a Friday and I do not presently have insurance, I decided to wait through the weekend to monitor it. Somehow, I managed to hobble around an engagement on Saturday night for a while and go out to dinner.
I do not think it’s necessary to go to the emergency room if you think you’ve torn your Achilles. The pain is not fun but ice, Advil, whiskey and getting to a good Orthopedic / Sports Medicine doctor is the highest priority within a couple days. I would think the ER visit is just extraneous.
I also read a LOT of message boards, forums, WebMD, etc. and was holding out hope that it was a minor partial tear or simply a strain. Stupidly, I thought since I was able to kind of walk on it, it may be ok. IDIOT! Coming to terms with a full ATR was something I was avoiding.
By mid-week (5 days since injury) I took to the Orthopedic search and here are my tips :
1. If you are young, active and the injury occurred while being active, I would try to find a doctor who also bills themselves as "Sports Medicine". He/she will have seen this exact injury a hundred times.
2. Find an Orthopedic "surgeon" (obviously Board Certified) and make sure they would be the doctor who performs the actual surgery. It seems a large amount of Orthopedics don’t actually do surgery and will simply refer you to someone else in the pipeline. Thus, taking more of your time and potentially money.
3. If you don’t have insurance, like myself, you can totally "shop around". Simply call up Orthopedics’s, explain your situation and they will 99% of the time get you in tough with their "Business" employee. They will give you the exact costs. Luckily, my doctor is not only awesome but they give a 50% discount to those who "self-pay" and don’t use insurance. Another Orthopedic I visited for a second opinion only gave a 30% discount, big difference.
4. Look to see if your Orthopedic, the center or the hospital has a Physical Therapy unit attached or combined with them. Mine does and caters to normal people but my doctors are also the team doctors for a local professional sports team. Wow! I was really impressed. The on-site PT is convenient for billing and check-up appointments. It also has to be good for communication and being run effectively.
5. Have patience. You don’t want to rush this and you want to get the best doctor for you, whether it’s comfort, price, location to you, etc. You can wait a week or two. I know that sounds heinous but I called many doctors for days, most didn’t have availability, required insurance, didn’t call me back, didn’t perform surgery or they were like 80 years old.
