My American Doctor

I don’t want to give the impression that I only go to the doctor in Mexico.  Having been raised in the Texas/Mexico border it has always been cheaper to go to Mexico for minor stuff like a cold, getting your teeth cleaned or having one pulled. 

It is always a good idea to have an American doctor or some people call them your primary physician.  Let me explain why…when you are young you don’t think you are ever going to be sick or perhaps you are a very healthy person and do not feel you need a doctor.  Such was the case with my dad.  All his life I only remember him being sick once. 

My father refused to go to the doctor or for that matter the hospital after he had his first stroke and his left hand went limp.  When he got his second and then third stroke he ended up in intensive care and the attending physician informed mother and I that we needed to find a doctor for him.  I called all the doctor’s in the phone book including one that was his friend and they all turned me down.

Do you know that you cannot even get in a nursing home without a doctor’s referral?  The nursing home also requires or at least they did back in the mid 1990’s that they have a primary physician they can call in case he gets sick.  I learned that very few doctors like to make nursing home visits because they feel old people complain too much.  This I was told by the nursing home administrator.

The only doctor that the nursing home helped me find for him was a young lady doctor that had just started her practice and I was grateful to have her.  Would have liked a more experienced physician but beggars can’t be choosers.

When it was clear mother was NOT going to move to Houston to live with me, I decided to move to Del Rio to live with her.  I also decided to look for a doctor now that I was healthy just in case something happened to me.  Mother’s doctor is a P.A. and he worked under this wonderful doctor.  When she was in the hospital he took very good care of her.  I was very impressed with his bedside manner and his warm and friendly personality.  Turns out he is the husband of the lady doctor that treated dad.

I went to see my American doctor today.  He is aware that I do not have insurance; I am what they call “self pay”.  Turns out I have bronchitis and he gave me a prescription and told me I can have it filled in Mexico.  He knows many of his patients including myself cross the border to buy our medications and he has no problem with that.  My bill today was $59.00 cash.