While we were down doing the Disneyland thing I took everyone to the beach. Son and daughter were horsing around with grandkids in the surf and son twisted his foot. It swelled up some so I took him to the doc-in-the-box. They have a sign up that says "we don't issue scripts for pain meds-if it is that bad call 911 or go to the ER."
While I waited for him to be seen and get an x-ray several people came to the window to be seen with some type of pain problem. One sketchy lady came in literately dragging some elderly lady along and said that grandma had dislocated her jaw and needed muscle relaxers and some pain meds. That it had happened before and this is what the other doctors did. The old lady didn't look like she even knew WHERE she was much less having her jaw dislocated. In the space of an hour or so some 5 or 6 people came in with similar pain problems, were denied and left.
I was informed (by my kids) that this was a fairly normal thing and they call them frequent fliers. Since my son actually works in the ER of a smaller town he sees probably at least 3 or 4 per shift. Daughter says that when she fills in down in the ER she has very little patience for pill shoppers or people that use the er for walk in clinics. They have to treat everybody and are not allowed to say anything to the patient.
Since they seem to have walk-in clinics on every block in SOCAL this must be a much bigger problem then I ever realized.
A really sad situation.
P.S.
Son had a bad sprain and no broken bones. He took 800 mg of Motrin and was good to go. Daughter wrapped his foot and away we went.
While I waited for him to be seen and get an x-ray several people came to the window to be seen with some type of pain problem. One sketchy lady came in literately dragging some elderly lady along and said that grandma had dislocated her jaw and needed muscle relaxers and some pain meds. That it had happened before and this is what the other doctors did. The old lady didn't look like she even knew WHERE she was much less having her jaw dislocated. In the space of an hour or so some 5 or 6 people came in with similar pain problems, were denied and left.
I was informed (by my kids) that this was a fairly normal thing and they call them frequent fliers. Since my son actually works in the ER of a smaller town he sees probably at least 3 or 4 per shift. Daughter says that when she fills in down in the ER she has very little patience for pill shoppers or people that use the er for walk in clinics. They have to treat everybody and are not allowed to say anything to the patient.
Since they seem to have walk-in clinics on every block in SOCAL this must be a much bigger problem then I ever realized.
A really sad situation.
P.S.
Son had a bad sprain and no broken bones. He took 800 mg of Motrin and was good to go. Daughter wrapped his foot and away we went.
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