There are occasionally downsides to socialist medicine · 7:16am Mar 24th, 2016
SCENE: The psychiatrist's office, just around the corner from where Hot Fuzz was filmed
CHUCK: So...
UNDERPAID AND OVER-WORKED HEAD SHRINKER: You have Attention Deficit Disorder.
CHUCK: Yes. Meds plz?
UAOWHS: Not so fast! First, I will need your school reports from ten years ago, plus the mobile phone numbers of at least two people who knew you as a child.
CHUCK: Ok why?
UAOWHS: NHS prescriptions regulations only allow me to hand out ADD meds to children.
CHUCK: That seems the exact opposite of a sensible ADD/ADHD treatment guideline.
UAOWHS: Yes.
CHUCK: Right. So, I am no longer a child.
Unfortunately, yes.
CHUCK: So where does that leave me?
UAOWHS: Well, if I can show on my forms that you were a child during the onset of these symptoms, I can prescribe medication as if you were a child patient.
CHUCK: And for that, you need school reports or testimony from people who never thought to get me treated in the first place.
UAOWHS: Yes
CHUCK: Despite the fact that you, a Paid Expert, think that I have textbook ADD.
UAOWHS: Yes
CHUCK: And you can't do a thing until you either get reports written by someone dealing with 29 other students or a call from Not A Paid Expert
UAOWHS: That's about right.
CHUCK: Fine. How much will all this cost me?
UAOWHS: Nothing! In glorious INGSOC, all medication is free! Except for an £8 prescription charge. Do a good enough job flirting with me, and I'll prescribe you a double dose.
CHUCK: Sounds about right. See you in ten days, doc!
FIN
Actually, in the US, there's a different hoop to jump through. The prescriptions for ADD medications are less than the amount of medications for sale. So pharmacists in the area can't provide ritalin exceeding the amount of prescriptions in the area.
Meaning if you go outside your own pharmacist they either can't fill your prescription, put you on a watch list, or both.
And then all those prescriptions get invalidated if a doctor is caught prescribing for cash, because it's a goldmine for drug abuse among college students I guess. So they can't stock it.
This is also true of pain medication.
3823984
Yeah but that's the US. I'm talking about the hoops you have to jump through if you live in a first-world country.
3823985
Holy fuck, Chuck
My version, a la USA:
Me: Doctor help.
Dr: Are you dying?
Me: No.
Dr: Later, bitch. We'll bill for the air you consumed in our office.
3823985
That was my favorite burn this month. Congratulations. I may have a particularly nasty disdain for the US medical system/lack-thereof, however. Untreated kidney stones shouldn't cost twelve thousand dollars.
3823999 Here's your Burn Notice! Next time, don't mess with the Chuck-a-nator.
Hey Chuckles! Know what you're going through! ADD is for kids! You're just an amphetamine junkie who could just walk to the nearest train station an buy something that most assuredly contains some chemical relative of amphetamine, so why bother with actually seeing a doctor when you can self medicate? Okay, well, maybe don't do that. I just know that over here in the Glorious Jewel Of Europe's Crown (the social-fascist country known as Finland) people actually DO buy illegal drugs to treat their ADD because the docs won't prescribe it. For any reason. At all.
On the other hand, if you need someone who knew you as a hyperactive kid, I'm a really good actor on the fone.
3824099
In fairness, I believe MrNumbers is an aussie
My question is, how successful was your flirting? Did you tap that sweet medication-prescribing, in-no-way-explicitly-gendered doctoral ass?
3824106
The important questions of our time.
3824106
I failed miserably. No half-price meds for me!
I personally think ADHD medication should be available, with limitations, to anyone who benefits from it, not just people with ADHD or ADD. (Un?)Fortunately, I definitely still have ADD. But hooray for generic five dollar prescriptions. Boo for a half hour with my psych Doctor costing more than 2 years of said prescriptions. I try not to see him very often.
*facehoof*
3824004 Sounds about right. Our medical system could really stand to be less of a cash whore, like say, offering custom 3D printed prosthetics and NOT charging an arm and a leg because then you'd need more prosthetics! And they really only cost about $5 for the plastic used. I question sometimes why I want to go into medicine.
3823984 Huh, we've never had any shortage of ADD meds in the area that I know of. Now *pain* medication is a whole 'nother story. We had a chronic pain doc just a few blocks from here get gigged for writing prescriptions for pain meds while he was outside of the country. Turns out he left a stack of pre-signed forms for his office to use while he was gone. People with legitimate long-term pain issues can wind up needing a dosage of pain meds that can kill an ordinary person, and due to our wonderful legislation, a doctor who prescribes for that patient winds up getting audited and possibly having their license yanked, for fear of him actually being one of the pill-dispensers as above.