True story: my seriously manic son seeks med care; told to come back in 9 days. [View all]

[DebJ]

This is the kind of stuff you never hear about behind the news headlines where someone with
mental illness ends up hurting himself and/or others.

I just can't understand this. When my husband or I have a sudden illness requiring a doctor's
attention, our GP's make room in the schedule to see us either that day or the next, depending
upon the time of our call.

But for some reasons the psychiatrists who are treating indigent patients in my son's city
don't feel any need or obligation to do this, nor to even return your calls....they SAY they will,
then they just don't. It didn't used to be that way when he was blessed for over 10 years
with a wonderful psychiatrist who would always make room. She even would talk to him beyond
the 15 minutes Medicaid allows her to bill for. She CARED about her patients.

If my son doesn't get his meds tweaked like immediately, he could continue to escalate, and either
he is going to end up hurting himself or god forbid maybe for the firs time someone else. He should
not have to go to the hospital and be admitted for this; he is proactively seeking help now that it has
been pointed out to him that he needs it. The hospital charges not only rack up the public expense for
medicaid, what the patient has to go through being locked up for days on end is just hideous. And all
completely unnecessary, when his meds could be tweaked through a ten minute or less phone call.

If this jackass doesn't get back to my son today.....and based on past experience, there is no reason to
think he will....I need to start calling people and finding out how the heck this kind of crap can go on.
If the issue however is that there just aren't enough psychiatrists to handle the Medicaid patient load...
something still needs to be done. It makes NO SENSE to pay for hospitilization and for my son to go
through that when it is not necessary. Maybe after I find out the back causes here I should write the
White House, or Biden...want to prevent gun violence by the mentally ill? Then damn it get some docs
into the system outside of hospitals who can make a damn 5-10 minute call.