The HMO Scam

Southern California's Inland Empire health care. HA! What a joke! What we have in this country is disease care.

I’ve been meaning to put the following together for several years now, but figured it would be a huge waste of my time as the AMA will undoubtedly back its pharmaceutical-subsidized “doctors”, and I am but one more drone out of many. But today, September 23, 2003, I’ve had enough of the quackery that goes on around here, daily.

But, to whom does one complain? Complaining to the doctor will get you ........ Yeah, right. (You are thinking the same thought I am here).

So, what, get a lawyer? They have malpractice insurance in place so they do not have to care. And they know goddamn well that the regular joe can't afford to sue.

So, my complaint forum will be the internet.

Health care in the Menifee / Sun City, California hospitals, urgent care centers and emergency rooms are a very bad joke around here, amongst a lot of greatly concerned parents. Some say it’s because we need more hospitals because of the insane building going on. I agree with that, of course, but I have witnessed insincere health care, of which my family has suffered from firsthand, for 6 years or more, long before the influx of more people moving into the area. Many of the doctors here are quacks and should be fired, if not imprisoned for “First Doing Harm”.

In the summer of 1997, our son Jared was running and slipped, cutting his wrist on an exposed nail and with one look I knew it was stitches time. We went in to Urgent Care here in Sun City, and after waiting the totally necessary 30 minutes or so (you know, the mandatory waiting period to make it appear they’re busier than they are), a Dr. Wolfson finally saw my son. Dr. Wolfson’s nurse gave Jared pain shots in and around the cut, and Wolfson then proceeded to stitch it up.

Now, Dr. Wolfson wears seeing glasses that appear half an inch thick. They’re the kind of eyeglasses that when he looks at you, you see two eyes looking back at you that appear the size of 50-cent pieces. Not his fault, having extremely bad eyesight, even with spectacles, but this is all the more reason he should not be “practicing” medicine. (It is my opinion that larger clinics and hospitals wouldn’t have him, so we get stuck with the dregs of the AMA world here in Sun City).

Anyway, he begins his butchery (sorry, of course I meant stitching) and I am here to tell you that they might have well dispensed with the pain shots because Wolfson was missing his mark much more often than not. Poor Jared, he sat there trying to be so brave but he couldn’t help flinching greatly, many times. He should not have felt a thing with all the anesthetics the nurse gave him (and I am quite sure we were charged for them). Wolfson had his face about 2 inches from Jared’s wrist while he “stitched”. I remember coming very close to taking the stuff out of Wolfson’s hands so that I could finish it myself. I know I’d have done a better job.

This is the type of doctors we get in Sun City.

But that was nothing, just a warmer upper. Read on, it gets better! Well, actually, worse.

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In November 1998, my left lung was hurting badly inside from all the diesel smoke I’d been taking in at work because the front-end loader I was operating was burning its fuel wrong and really stinking. Even the water truck driver and the excavator operator would wave me away from them, whenever I came near to give them more dirt to compact in the trench. Hazards of the trade.

(I was a heavy equipment operator for a national construction company. The cabs of their loaders had no air conditioning so we would tie the side doors of our cabs open so we could breathe. Outside temperatures would reach 120+ degrees in the shade on many of the jobs we were on in Southern California, but there’s still plenty of glass in the cabs for the sun to magnify through, so we operators, the ones without air conditioning that is, would be in 140 degree conditions).

But one Thursday afternoon in 1998 on a job near Helendale, California, the pain in my lungs got so bad that I quit at 2:30pm to go in and tell my superintendent that I needed to go home and to a doctor. When I arrived home in Sun City, I immediately went in to Urgent Care and as luck would have it I get “Dr.” Wolfson, who guessed it might be pleurisy, which a Dr. Martinez confirmed the next day.

While I was still with Wolfson however, I told him that I had also been feeling heart palpitations, or flutterings, and I felt it was missing beats and wondered if this too was from too much diesel smoke inhalation. He looked up at me over the rim of his glasses, for about 6 or 7 seconds, made no comment whatsoever, and went back to his paperwork for me to see Martinez the next day. When he handed me the paperwork to take with me, there was still no mention of my heart complaint.

Anyway, when visiting Dr. Martinez the next day, after confirming pleurisy of the lung, I asked him if we could do a physical, and I meant a full-on physical of all my internal organs, blood tests, and etc. etc. I asked him if we could do it that day, and Holy Christ, you’d have thought I had asked him the most impossible thing in the world! He snorted out loud and said NO, no way, it was not possible that day. So I said “OH. Ok, I’ll schedule an appointment for next week then”, feeling like I’d really insulted this guy and his time.

I got in the following week, being I was off work for a few days, and, after waiting the totally necessary half hour (and this is AFTER being let into a private room, mind you -- not the first totally necessary waiting period out in the main waiting room), Martinez came in, said hello, listened to my lungs frontside and back, then did the testicle thing, having me turn my head left, cough, turn the head right, cough -- and then he excused himself and left the room. I sat waiting. Waiting for what I thought would be for blood taking, x-rays, what have you. Ten minutes or so later, a nurse came in, surprised that I was still there in my gown, thinking the room was empty for another patient, and said that I could get dressed now. Yes, that was it, she said.

Martinez had been in the room with me for a total of 3 ½ minutes, perhaps less. But there was just absolutely no way this greedy son of a bitch quack had the time to do this “physical” the Friday before. Why?

Well, the answer’s so obvious: to make me come in for another visit so he could fatten his bank account that much more.

After all, isn’t that how the HMO scam is put together?

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During the summer of 2001 our son Jared broke his left collarbone and my wife Kristie took him to the emergency room at Menifee Valley Medical Center which is 6 blocks from our house. It was on a Sunday, and they walked in the hospital door around 1pm.

I was at home with our other two children, and after 2 ½ hours I called Kris on her cell phone to see what the hell was going on and she said Jared hadn’t been seen yet.

Now, mind you, they were in the emergency room. Yes, the Menifee Valley Medical Center Emergency off McCall Blvd in Sun City, California.

After another couple hours I was so mad that I called to speak to a nurse. I got a male nurse, and he very calmly assured me they were doing the best they could with the 12 beds they had in the hospital (see enclosed picture of this very large building that has but 12 beds). I said, “Hey, my wife and son have been there for over 4 hours though!” He very martyr-like asked me if I would have him throw the other patients out in the street, so of course I replied “No” to that, but also “Could SOMEone look at my son sitting there with a broken collarbone, as he’s been there for 4 ½ hours???”

This went on for 5 minutes or more with the nurse/martyr. We hung up, with me having his full assurance someone would try to see Jared soon. It is approximately 5:30pm now.

At 9pm I called my wife to see where they were. I thought they must’ve gone shopping for school clothes or something. They were still waiting.

At 10pm they walked in the door at home here, and this is what I learned: A doctor finally “became available” to see Jared, took one look at his collarbone, and said “Oh, he’s got a busted collarbone, we can’t do anything for that, you’ll have to take him to your regular family doctor”.

Yes, that is what this doctor told my wife and son. No, I am not kidding you! No, really! I AM NOT JOKING!!! After over 8 hours waiting in the “emergency room”, the doctor saw them for a total of 5 minutes.

Oh! What did they end up doing for Jared before he left, you're wondering? They rounded up a flimsy sling to put on him, but after trying to put it on him, my own wife suggested using the one they had come with, which we’d had at home. They used our sling and dismissed them.

I was livid. And that’s putting it extremely lightly. I called the hospital at 10:30 that night and asked for the head nurse. She came on the line and told me she didn’t know what was going on as she’d just arrived for her shift. So I explained the whole situation, as calmly as I could using no profanity, and she said she’d look into it. (Don’t you just love those 3 little words? I’ll “look into it”.)

I also told her to tell the billing department to NOT send us a bill, because it WILL without a doubt go straight into our recycle bin without being opened. I told her I would go to court over this, AND do anything else I could possibly do to expose their ineptitude to the world.

Menifee Valley Medical Center Emergency, Sun City, California. Bad. Very bad.

8 and one-half goddamn hours in a goddamn EMERGENCY ROOM. In a town with a a population of 8500.

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We now come to Danek. “Dr.” Susan Danek, Family Practioner, Sun City, California.

Susie Danek is a seemingly good-natured doc. She loves to crack jokes. All the time. I have often thought she uses this tactic to hide her inability to diagnose things. Anyway, this is just my own opinion and perhaps is irrelevant.

Try and call Danek’s office to schedule an appointment. Go ahead, here’s the number: 951-301-9171. I will bet my last dollar that you won’t get in for a week and a half, more likely two weeks, or even longer. Over the past 4 years, this has been the case with me. When I had abdomen problems a couple years ago, I couldn’t wait her 2 weeks so I went to Dr. Robert Peterson, who is the epitomy of the Family Doctor. (We had him as our family doctor when we lived in Temecula, but upon moving to Sun City we had to use the quacks that were assigned us as our HMO extortion-provider from my wife and my respective work places). Anyway, Dr. Peterson sees me the very next day and we do a colonoscopy which turns out ok.

Another health issue came up with me some time later, and I call the HMO extortion number for Danek’s office, got her answering service, and left a message asking if a nurse could call me back. They do not. So I go to Dr. Robert Peterson in Murrieta again, and things get done promptly, as usual. Even though we have to pay out of our own pocket. But I don’t mind. You get what you pay for.

Two months ago, near the end of July 2003, I developed severe pain in my lower front which I thought was my iliosoas muscle group and/or my quadratus muscles, for which I had been seeing Dr. Imre Weil of Canyon Lake, California (an acupressurist who had studied under Janet Travell). Dr. Weil could tell almost immediately that my condition did not involve either the iliosoas or the quadratus, and suggested I go to Dr. Tom Araneta, a good family physician here in Sun City.

So, knowing that it would most likely take 2 weeks to get in to see “Dr.” Danek, I get myself over oh so painfully to Dr. Araneta’s office and am seen promptly. Urine test reveals blood in the urine along with bacteria, and he told me I have kidney stones as well as having a severe kidney infection. He recommends that I should go in to the hospital for several days, that’s how severe he found my condition to be!

So, he asks who my primary physician is (you know, because we have to have the extortion-referral to be admitted to a hospital), and I had to admit that it was Danek. So he dials up her office (which is only one city block away), gets her on the phone, and, while I am reeling with pain, he informs her that he has a patient of hers in his office and needs to see her for possible admittance to the hospital. I can only hear half the conversation, of course. What I hear is this: “But he’s doubling over in pain right here in my office.” Then he says “Ok, next Wednesday.” (this is on a Friday). Then I hear “But he’s doubling OVER in pain, right now!” And finally “OH! What? ….. ok…………. Yes, goodbye…”

As Dr. Araneta replaces the receiver, he turns towards me with a look of incredulity all over his face. Indeed, I believe he was quite embarrassed to tell me what she said. But he told me anyway: “She said she can see you not this next Wednesday, but the following Wednesday!” A week and a half away.

This is (ok, was) our family doctor. This is Susie Danek’s way of doing things. This is what Danek does to you if you go to another doctor besides her. Even though you cannot get in to see her for half a month or more! Extremely vindictive, uncaring, unprofessional Cunt with a Capital C.

So, Dr. Araneta gave me antibiotic pills, pain pills and a shot in the arm which all did their work. I felt better within a few days, but I knew I should go in and get an ultrasound done like Dr. Araneta suggested, just to be sure. So I swallowed my pride, started to call Danek’s office to make an appointment to pay her the extortion fee for admittance to a hospital … but changed my mind and called PrimeCare in Temecula and told them about my problems with their “Dr.” Danek. The kind lady listened sympathetically, and then called Danek on my behalf and lo and behold, I got in that afternoon!

Danek started out with her usual joking, to me and one of her helpers, which I answered with a smile, and then she proceeded to do her procedure. She actually began with questions of what Dr. Araneta had said and done, then denounced everything he had done or suggested doing, even making the facial expressions that one would reserve for kooks. When I mentioned that I wanted an ultrasound, she shook her head no, that wasn’t the way to go, but instead wanted to fill me up with dye and go that way instead. I know that if I had suggested doing the dye thing, she would have suggested an ultrasound.

Anyway, the appointment wound its way through to the end, and she had me go in next door for blood work, which I did, and then went home to await the results in a few days.

I called a few days later to hear the results, and was told by one of the helpers that they would mail out the results as usual. Weeks went by when I realized it had turned into 5 weeks, so I called Danek’s office again, and was told that my blood was clean.

Oh! Ok. I asked what about my getting mailed the results, and the helper said that they usually don’t mail out results if things are ok. But … two more weeks went by and I was thinking all along that I should have the right to have been mailed my own results. I mean, after all, it’s my health bill, not something for Danek to “manage”. So I called in, identified myself and asked the helper “So my blood is clean but what about my cholesterol and triglyceride levels from that test?” The helper said “Oh, ok, let me see…. Ok, can you hold on a minute?” and I was put on hold for 3 or 4 minutes.

At that point Danek herself came on the line and started talking a mile a minute trying to tell me how my file got lost or mislaid or something along those lines, and that it was a good thing I called as she wanted to talk to me about my triglycerides level which was close to 700. (She seemed to have miraculously found my file while I was on hold).

(But hey, wait a minute … If she knew it was near 700, wouldn’t she have called before the results got lost?? …. Hmmmm….)

I said “Seven hundred??” She said yes, and suggested “more blood work just in case that last one was a fluke due to the kidney infection”. I agreed to another round of blood work (after all, Danek has bills too, and Porcshe car payments), so I went in last Friday, the 19th of September (very close to 2 months after the 1st bloodwork!) for the paperwork to take to Unilab Monday the 22nd.

Let’s recap here for a moment, because I want you, the reader’s, opinion here:

1) After I am not mailed the results, even though I am told I will be mailed the results, I call in again and a helper says everything’s fine, my blood is clean.
2) But when I call in yet again for the total results (you have to be specific when you call these extortionists), I am told my file was lost for awhile, but miraculously found the day I call back.
3) After all of Danek’s crap, and her knowledge that here was a guy who did not see her as a god, did she personally tell the helper to lose my file?
4) Would not a real family physician be concerned with her patient’s well being, enough to make a phone call to warn me of very high triglyceride levels? After all, they knew my “blood was clean”, before they misplaced my file, so would they not have noticed at that time the high triglyceride levels?
5) When I first called in for my results, when I was told my blood was clean, then EXACTLY HOW COULD MY FILE HAVE BEEN LOST IF THEY SAID MY BLOOD WAS CLEAN???

I’ve since been given my choice of three other doctors locally, of which I will be going to interview soon. But at first though, a couple months ago PrimeCare told me that the nearest one was in Hemet, California which is 20 miles away.
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May 15, 2004

Dr. Vadim Gurvitz.

After having enough of Danek’s irresponsible doctoring, I chose to be “assigned” to Dr. Gurvitz – and was promptly told, on my first phone call to them, that an appointment would be 2 weeks away.

What the!?

So I go through the list of Sun City doctors and called Dr. Bryan Nuygen’s office. Same thing, two weeks away for an appointment. I thought what the hell, I’ll try one more. Dr Lady what’s-her-name. Guess how long! A week and a half? Do you want to guess 3 weeks?? Nope. Two weeks. All of them are two weeks. It’s the HMO scam to get the poor working flunkies to spend $75 co-pay instead of $15.

Oh c’mon now. Don’t believe it? Just give it one moment of your discerning intellect … a few if need be ... I understand it’s a hard pill to swallow, having to face that which we’ve been “taught to believe” ... and tell me other reasons it could be. I would love to be wrong on anything here.

So .. I figured I’d give the Urgent Care a try, and was asked for $75, instead of the usual $15 co-pay. Oh, I understand that it’s urgent care alright. The more you hurt, the more you pay, but that’s not my point here. My point is, there was not one person in the waiting room to see Gurvitz during the half hour I was there. Not one. So where was Gurvitz when I wanted to set an appointment with him? Seeing patients? Nope. He was waiting in his backoffice somewhere for more 75-dollar idiots to come through the door. (While I was there, Gurvitz came out of his den for 2 seconds to come out to the front, peek around, then quickly turned around and went back in. The asshole had no patients!)

So .. we have three doctors (four if you actually count Susie Danek as one) who cannot see me when I am in severe pain, for two weeks. All of them, two weeks -- I just have to impress that upon you once again. So I end up keeping the appointment that I’d made with Gurvitz, but do I get to see the actual god Gurvitz when I arrive? No. I see an assistant of his named Janet. Pleasant enough person, no doubt. We go through a bit of my medical history and I ask for blood tests, with uric acid level being one of my main concerns.

I also ask for an iron ferritin test and she says “Well, yeah, we can do that too, but…. [shrug of the shoulders] “ -- acting like it was not important in the least. A high iron level is highly oxidative to tissues and organs, and anybody practicing any form of medicine should know this.

(By the way ... when was the last time your doctor asked you what your pH factor was? “Huh? What’s a ph factor?” You mean … your doctor has never mentioned this to you? Never told you of the relation between cancer and a low pH level? Never highly recommended a more alkaline diet?)

I was asking Janet questions that I could tell she normally does not get from patients (I do my research on things so that I have a better understanding of them) and, as she more and more tried to show that she knew what I was asking, she would also sidestep a question here and there with something else. For instance, the one that stood out the most was when she asked me if I drank a lot of water daily. I told her yes, I drink close to a gallon a day or more -- but she wanted to be helpful somehow I guess, so she proceeded to show me, using her pen to show the markings on a glass, how much 8 ounces was. Yes, and how much 16 ounces is, further up the glass… and yes, on to 32 ounces .... and (omg...) all the way to 64 ounces.

Stupefying..

Anyway, the appointment finishes and as I am dazedly walking to my vehicle, Janet comes running outside and takes from me the order list for Unilabs (the blood test place) to mark something else down, as she said she’d forgotten to mark down uric acid to test for (the very first thing I’d asked for). I thank her and go on my way... stupefied. Wondering, "Dear Christ, did I pay money for that??"

I get to the blood testing place the next day, and after all is done I notice that uric acid was not tested. I call in to Unilabs and they told me it had not been ordered. I said it was too ordered, it was the main thing I went in for! (I had noticed that “UI” was scribbled on the bottom of the paper to take to Unilabs, which was the work of Janet when she came running out to add it to the order list -- which may have been mistaken for Urine Analysis by the phlebotomist at Unilabs. Uric Acid is indeed in the list of Conditions further up the page, but was not checkmarked -- proof, to me at least, that she had never heard of uric acid before in her life, or she would have checked the appropriate box for it -- and NOT scribble UI on the bottom of the paper).

So I call Gurvitz’s office. An assistant to Janet (whom you will remember as an assistant to Gurvitz), tells me that Janet is gone for a week and a half. I relate their office’s mistake and the assistant asks the doctor (yes, he’s there, he’s there lurking in the background somewhere) if I can do a uric acid test … and he tells her to ……… now get this:  "Have him come in when it starts hurting badly again so we can test the level at that time.”

!!!!!!!!!!!?

Ok. Let’s recap here:
#1: I was hurting very badly the first time I called him, and I couldn’t get in for two weeks. But now I am supposed to wait until it hurts like absolute hell again, and try then to get in to see him??

#2: The whole idea, of course, is to get an idea of where the uric level is, so, as was helpfully input by Gurvitz’s 2nd assistant, “to have a base to start from”. NOT to come in to take a test when in extreme pain only to hear Gurvitz say “HEY! Your uric acid level is really high right now, d-d-d-duh!”

So, the good assistant makes out another bloodwork order for me and the results came back ok. How did I find this out, you may well ask? ………… I had to call in for it, of course.

Was anything suggested for my slightly high iron ferritin level? No, nothing.

Thankfully, more and more people are taking their health into their own hands these days and are doctoring themselves with herbs, essential oils, orthomolecular/megavitamin therapy, ORMEs minerals and zeolites and such. So, after doing my own research (again because there’s no help or suggestions forthcoming from the medical, mega-profit, sin-dustry), I find that the best way to lower a high iron level is a periodical phlebotomy. And I have found out that every 56 days one can donate blood, and that’s what I’ve been doing periodically since, when the blood drives are in the area around my time schedule.

Also, according to the Reference column from my Unilabs test results paper, a healthy pH level is 4.5 to 7.5. From research (again), a pH of 6.0 is considered borderline acidic and that anything less is very oxidative to the body. Extremely acidic. I believe the tolerances allowed by Unilab is negligent and harmful to people’s health, because a 4.5 pH is extremely acidic, which does indeed set the stage for cancer. Most everyone who has or dies of cancer has an extremely low pH level.

And you can bet your behind they are fully aware of this fact.

But that’s one of the big moneymaking secrets of the medical, mega-profit, sin-dustry.

By the way... when was the last time YOUR doctor tested your pH level, or even asked you about it?
Take charge of your health, beginning today.

And Wolfson, Martinez, Danek, Pumphrey, Gurvitz, take notice:  Caring professionals are needed here -- and not one of you is either caring nor professional.

In fact, a court of justice is where some HMO doctors should be.

I believe that HMO doctors are the dregs of the medical world. They couldn't make it as real doctors. We got the jokers who got D's and F's in "med" (read Big Pharma) school.

Haha... speaking of Gurvitz... several years later (June 2009) the school called to say Trev had to have a physical for the sports he's in and that an appointment was made with the Gurv. I stopped the talking head in her tracks and gently told her no, Trevor will not be going to see Burvitz, that I will have him go to our personal family physician, Dr Araneta. She opened the mouth to do the but-but-but thing, so I had to inform the uninformed person that Durvitz does not have a monopoly on a goddamn thing, that perhaps he has a financial arrangement with the school..... I wouldn't know........ but that's behind-closed-doors kinda stuff which is none of my business and that.....

She actually interrupted to capitulate.

Really makes me wonder though, how many other parents were duped into using that fucker, sanctioned through the school.

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Side note:  Have you ever noticed, in every hospital or clinic that you've ever been to, that nearly all of the nurses and receptionists are not only overweight but some actually obese? Did you ever notice this? You'll notice it from now on, though. I mean, look who they work for! Fat doctors destined for heart attacks themselves before they're 60!

Now... go to a holistic health care professional and you will not see one fattie, ever. Not one person overweight, even the receptionist who must sit in a chair most of every day.

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Update 1-17-05
My wife and I switched to a PPO so we can choose almost whomever we want as our doctor. Thank God there’s a Dr. Tomas Araneta in the world! I went in to see if my new PPO insurance card is accepted there on Friday 1-14-05. Being as it was accepted, I was asked if I wanted to schedule an appointment and I said yes.

This was 8:30 in the morning. She asked if 9:20 would be ok. Yes, 9:20 the same day, the same morning. No, not two-weeks-away-same-morning. That very same morning, just like Drs. Peterson and Pillai in Murrieta can fit in when human beings come in with problems and pain. These doctors know that it only takes 5 to 15 minutes with a patient.

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Update 8-26-06

My son Jared.

Yep, the one who had the broken collarbone a few years back.... yes, the very one who sat for 8 and a half hours in an EMERGENCY ROOM in SUN CITY CALIFORNIA only to get no help at the end. Today, Jared broke the fibula AND the tibia in BOTH LEGS on his dirt bike in Lake Elsinore.

Yes, you're right, dear reader:  Life's a bitch.

Anyway... long story short:

• Inland Valley Medical Center off of Clinton Keith Rd, Murrieta (we knew better than to go to the Sun City Death Center).
• 3 and a half hours in emergency room before being seen (different hospital, same jurisdiction don'tcha know).
• At the end of that time, after examining the x-rays, the knowledgable doctor told my wife that nothing can be done until Monday. Jared is to go home, with crutches neither supplied nor recommended, and stay completely off his feet, take a lot of Vicodin and see the bone doctor Monday, as he was out golfing.

I called another doctor at 4:30pm who we've seen before, a bone doc in Temecula. Dr. Kim happened to be on vacation, but his fallback doctors were on call. But only for existing patients, I find out, the good phone person told me. I told this phone person that we HAVE seen Dr. Kim before, but for another son, Colton. "Sorry, sir, only existing patients. Legal ramifications."

Ah yes, the goddamn legal ramifications.

I made a remark like "What a medical industry we have!" and another something like "What a fucking BUSINESS!"

Like I've said before, we do not have health care in the United States. We have disease care.

7:28 pm Saturday night...
For Jared to shout and yell in pain like he's doing.... that tough guy .... you'd have to know him, hard as a rock.

What are we living in, the goddamn fucking Stone Age? Can't get a doctor to set broken legs on a Saturday early afternoon? What the fuck!

I wonder if Arnold Swarzenegger or the mayor of LA or the golfing-doctor himself would have to go home with 2 broken legs for 48+ hours.

We've got a goddamn fucking PPO, for Christ's sake!!

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Update 1-9-07

Wow! What a coincidence! I mention ol' Arnie, and the guy breaks one of his own legs, skiing this month!!

Oh no!!!! Dear God, I wonder what day of the week he broke it...... Hopefully not on a Saturday morning because he would be so totally screwed.

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Update 3-30-09

It's been a while since I've posted any complaints here, largely due to the fact that we see only holistic health care professionals now. Unless it's for routine blood tests, physical exams for the kids for the sports they're in, etc, which trained monkeys can perform.

However, in February of this year, a blood test showed that I had "very high TSH levels" and Dr. Araneta here in Sun City immediately made an appointment for me to get an ultrasound AND a nuclear scan -- all in the same day. Not only the same day, but during the same hospital exam visit. And while he's making the appointment for all this, he hands me 3 packages of Levox but says not to take them until the tests are done...

(Yeah, I know, I was praising Araneta earlier. He's day-and-night better than all the other quacks here in Sun City combined. But he is still medically-trained-and-brained).

A lawyer for the whole foods industry told me he would never have a nuclear scan done, and that it was "beyond me why people take Synthroid when there's Armour out there."

So, I call my sister near San Jose who had thyroid cancer 15 years ago and she said the exact same thing about the nuke scan: "Why would they schedule it the same day, when they don't even have the results back for the ultrasound?" She recommended that I get an FNA performed (fine needle aspiration) to see if there are any abnormalities.

So I schedule myself an appointment with Scripps in La Jolla CA, thinking they're the best, and I actually get in to see a Dr James McCallum, the top endocrinologist there. I feel safer. I believe I will finally get "health care".

I go to the appointment on Friday March 27th 2009, and the doc comes in. He looks over the ultrasound report and makes note of the slightly enlarged lobes, one side being slightly larger than the other. He asks me what supplements I take, asks if I smoke or not, and then looked at the back of my hands, and then felt my neck.

However..... dumb me.... I make the mistake of telling him about my sister and her been-through-the-mill experiences, and also that her own doctor in San Francisco agreed that he wouldn't recommend a nuke scan for me either at this point, but rather, the FNA biopsy.

Dumb me... totally forgetting how pathetically jealous most med doctors are of each other!

So.... Dr. James McCallum's conclusion and comments? Here, I'll tell you:  

An FNA is not necessary (even though that is what I requested when I made the appointment), and he wanted to put me on Synthroid. I asked about dessicated Armour instead, and the look on his face matched the words that came out of his mouth:  "Dessicated Armour is just ground-up pig parts." As I continue to look at him, waiting for more revelations to flow from this wellpoint of knowledge, he then informs me that ..... "there is not a supplement on the face of the earth that will give the thyroid what it needs. Only Synthroid will do the job."

When I tell him I don't want to take foreign, synthetic chemicals, he informs me that .... "Synthroid is not synthetic, and it is not chemical. It is the exact same hormone that the thyroid produces."

And then .. to top it off, he gave me what can only be described as ...an admonishment ... for coming all the way to San Diego just for this exam.

And of course, in retrospect, I couldn't have agreed more.

But you see, I was there to get "the best". Plus, I did not want to have to tell him why, to go into any of the nightmarish stories listed above, as to what type of "health care" we get up there in the ... [ahem, cough, cough....] "Inland Empire".

Again... his name is James McCallum of Scripps Clinic & Research Foundation in La Jolla California, for those who would like to know.

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Update 2-25-2010

My daugher Jenna. Remember on the HMO HELL page where I told how Jenna received her last bout with vaccination? The way they had me help hold her down because they knew she would scream at the size of that monstrous needle? Well, my dear Jenna developed scoliosis several years ago, and I've been reading of late how scoliosis is caused by a virus. I took her to see Dr. Harvey at http://clear-institute.com in North Hollywood CA and we will be starting that treatment as soon as we can. We are also doing Raindrop Therapy. (We're supposed to call it Raindrop Technique, but it truly is therapy). (see Dr. Woggon's website).

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Dear Reader... all the above experiences did absolutely nothing though, to prepare us for this.

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More later. Come back to this page for more absurd stories later, because by now you know there'll be more.

Some people have said to me, "Jeez, Jeff, they're doing the best they can!"

   And that is exactly what scares me.