The county's public health department has its own family medicine, women's med, children's ed, etc... And they charge less than the other doctors. I went there for a physical, no co pay charged. Regular visit is $10 each time, and my co pay is $30. And the doc here is super nice, because she's not under the pressure of the actual boss, i.e. the private equity firms that own the ERs and hospitals. And most of the private practices in our town are being bought out by the hospital system. So the doctors are being evaluated by productivity, i.e. how many patients they can see per day. They have to work faster, see more patient per day to be counted as efficient.
Public health department is owned by the government, so the doctors are not being subject to such surveillance. And even if you don't have any income or have very low income, the government will make sure you're being covered or subsidized. No one is being rejected here. It's unbelieavbly nice and orderly. Unfortunately, relatively few in the community knows that. If I knew there's such a service exist , I'd have my health checked more often and seek care when I need.
But for decades, I tried to avoid seeing primary care doctors or get annual well visit because of the awful general pratitioners around town. Those doctors are surly and apparently stressed or bored. They always stared at their computers to fill in the data during the visit and didn't want to chat with the patients. Emotionally, I felt neglected by them. So I didn't go back.
Now this woman doctor I met at the family medicine a few days ago, she's a homey! She even asked why I wanted to work as a substitute teacher because I came to get a physical exam for employement. It is rare! She listened and sympathized with a patient, which is what I've never experienced before. I remember how little presonal connection I had with my prior doctors, ob gyns, endocrinologist, and how they dismissed me as a less knowledgeable person in medicine.
This woman doctor, however, feels like a nice neighbor to me. She's a middle aged, mild, black woman that I can relate to. I've been living and working among blacks for more than two decades and feel comfortable talking with them. They are generally the easy going and friendly people. White women of middle ages, on the opposite, is not my type of friends. They could be aloof, guarded, or even downright rude. It's just my personal opinion, though. Since my sphere of life rarely gets intertwined with white people of different ages, it could be biased. I live in the Southeast, where minorities are majority. And the school I work in is made of mostly blacks, with both pupils and teachers.
