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How About A Nice Facial With That Uterine Biopsy? [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-12-21
Please give me my serious medical care without any upsell bullshit!
An email offers me the “gift of relaxation” this year — an Infrared Sauna Special with the benefits of detoxification, weight loss, pain relief and “enhanced overall well-being.”
Sounds sketchy, right? You might think I got this email from a spa I’d previously visited, but in fact, this email came from a gynecologist’s office following a uterine biopsy.
Welcome to the Hoo-ha Spa experience!
I was not seeking some kind of relaxing indulgence. I was there so someone could poke an instrument up through my cervix and remove a chunk of the inside of my uterus for cancer testing.
It was super fun! The nurse practitioner couldn’t get the instrument through my narrow cervical opening the first time because I was screaming.
“You’ve had children, right?” she asked me, annoyed. Yes, in fact, a 9-lb.-plus baby passed through that very cervix. And pushing out a giant baby was less painful than that biopsy. I wasn’t exactly silent when I gave birth, but I didn’t scream. (I can prove it. I have videotape.)
But that birth was three decades ago and things up there may have changed a bit. The nurse didn’t try to hide her contempt, implying I was overreacting by screaming about “a little cramping.”
“It’s not the cramping. It’s the ripping,” I said.
She prescribed a misoprostol tablet — yes, the abortion drug, but don’t worry, I’m past menopause — to soften my cervix. I began to picture my cervix as an old leather shoe in the back of the closet that has curled up and changed shape through the years.
We tried it again another day after the drug had uncurled my brittle old leather shoe or whatever was up there. I screamed somewhat less and she got it done the second time. Everything came out fine, except naturally, they assumed a woman who needed to be checked for uterine cancer must also need sauna visits, Botox, facials and hair removal.
You know. Serious medical stuff like that.
They’ve been sending me emails ever since. These emails urge me to keep my skin hydrated and offer fancy products to do so. They are anxious to laser both my face and my vagina. The laser resurfacing and facial combo is $550, but they’d let me have it for $399. They didn’t say how much the MonaLisa Touch hoo-ha laser would run me.
(Why did they name that laser after Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa? A better choice might have been Edvard Munch’s The Scream.)
I did not go to that office because I thought my face and lady bits required their laser. I sought serious medical care. I wasn’t there to have fun. I have had more fun at funerals, frankly, than I had at their office. Much like my dogs do not consider the veterinarian’s office a place where good times ever happen, I am unlikely to ever choose to have a nice relaxing massage at the same office where a bad-tempered nurse bitched about me screaming as she poked at my cervix.
Why did I choose that office?
I didn’t. My health insurance required me to get a referral, and that is where they sent me.
I didn’t get a choice — not if I wanted my insurance to cover it. Maybe they got mixed up and thought I wanted a referral for a good place for decongesting pores, because that’s another service their emails let me know they provide.
Everybody is doing it.
My vet suggests products and procedures that sound like upselling to me, so I no longer automatically trust them. I research things myself before agreeing to anything. (I decided my elderly beagle mix, Cashew, who had a tumor before I adopted her, does not in fact require a thousand dollars’ worth of tests annually so we can detect any cancer early. What could we possibly do about it if we did find something?)
Just this week, I called them and said Cashew needed an antibiotic for a urinary tract infection. They insisted on $350 worth of bloodwork and urine tests before they’d treat her, because it might not be the thing it very obviously was. It might instead have been a relatively rare thing. Two days later, guess what? They prescribed an antibiotic for her UTI. (I might have pushed back if I’d been at the visit, but I have Covid.)
Everybody is an esthetician now.
I recently had to have a cataract removed from one of my eyes. Researching local ophthalmologists, I quickly ruled out one because in addition to eye care, they’ve branched out to offer all kinds of cosmetic services: dermal fillers, microneedling, weight management ….
Wait, weight management?
Ophthalmology focuses on eyes. Your eyesight has nothing to do with your weight. I am not even a doctor, and I am aware of that. I notice they didn’t offer a sideline in, say, uterine biopsies. They picked the profitable stuff — optional stuff patients choose and pay for on their own.
I picked a different ophthalmology office, but rolled both my good and my bad eyes when I saw a banner in the lobby advertising the skin-care products they sell.
There’s no escaping it.
That wasn’t even the worst part of it, though.
After my exam, the office texted me seven videos and asked me to view all of them. I would have preferred written materials because I’m a fast reader who can absorb information quickly and I resent the time-suck of videos.
But I assumed there was important information I needed to know, so I began viewing them. My husband glanced over and noted, “Those look like ads.”
That’s because they were. I didn’t learn anything new about cataracts or surgery. Instead, the videos pushed the more expensive type of lens that my insurance wouldn’t cover. The option sounded downright miraculous. Actor after actor gushed about how incredible their life was after getting the new vision-correcting lenses. But the videos never mentioned the price. At my next appointment, I inquired.
They charge an extra $2,500 for that lens. Per eye, if you’re having both done. No wonder they found it worthwhile to provide several high-production-value ads, er, educational videos.
Even my dentist pulls this.
I don’t object to getting a text that reminds me my teeth-cleaning appointment is coming up. But then they started sending me texts suggesting I recommend them to my friends and get various cosmetic dental procedures.
I texted back, “I already get all my dental care at your office. Please don’t market to me.”
A woman I know used to work as a massage therapist at a big cosmetic surgery complex. She got in trouble for not pushing procedures on her clients. She tried to explain that people paying for a massage are trying to relax, and that using the massage time to make them question their appearance wasn’t a great way to help them de-stress.
If I were paying for a massage, and the therapist used the time that I was paying for to deliver a sales pitch for plastic surgery, I’d be enormously pissed.
I remember when doctors were not in sales.
The obstetrician-gynecologist who helped me deliver my children retired long ago. He did not sell a damned thing at his office. He only provided medical care, and he never tried to upsell me on anything.
What was he thinking? Just imagine all the extra money he could have made if even half his patients could have been persuaded to buy some fancy skin cream!
Picture yourself lying there during your annual exam, your feet in stirrups, feeling very vulnerable — and having your gynecologist say something like, “I noticed your forehead has developed some fine lines. As soon as I finish down here, how about I inject some Botox into your face? The great thing is, you get 20 percent off cosmetic procedures with every pap smear!”
Instead, he kept his conversations to subjects like reproductive health. I appreciate that. When he told me I needed to have something done, I didn’t worry that he was just trying to make more money. I trusted his medical expertise.
I would like to be able to trust that all medical professionals are there to take care of me, not to extract as much profit from me as possible.
Medical procedures are not like household appliances.
I don’t ever love being upsold to, but if a salesperson tries to convince me I need a fridge with more bells and whistles, I don’t really object. I’m still going to walk out of there with the model I want, and even if I do end up getting one with a special ice maker or something, the worst thing that happens is I might spend more than I’d planned. But I don’t worry that I’m going to die if I don’t spend the money on the enhanced option they’re upselling me on.
I would like to think people become doctors because they want to help people — not to get rich. Treat me like a patient, not a wallet! I’m paying them, and paying them well, for their special expertise.
If you’re any kind of doctor, dentist or advanced practice nurse, you’re making a very good living just by doing your job. You do not need to push products and services unrelated to your medical expertise, and if you do, I’m judging you hard for it. I’m questioning your professionalism.
I’m wondering, “Are they such incompetents at this office that they can’t make a living providing the type of medical care they’re supposedly experts in? They have to branch out into non-medical stuff, too?”
I predict veterinarians will soon offer Doggy and Me spa specials, in which you and your dogs will enjoy massages together. Frankly, Mr. Joe could use a bit of Botox if not a facelift. He has some extra skin around his neck for sure.
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