Now, we all know that stress’ll send a person straight to an early grave. But if you ask me, our modern healthcare system isn’t in the business of curing stress—it’s in the business of manufacturing the stuff!
Just try booking a plain old doctor’s visit these days. You dial the number, praying for a friendly voice, and instantly get handed off to a computer that first wants to poll you on what language you speak. This digital gatekeeper drags you through a dozen canned questions, repeatedly hollering that if you’re currently having a real health emergency, don’t go bothering the doctor—hang up and dial 911! Once you navigate that endless maze and finally punch the magic digit for a living, breathing human, what’s your reward? You get put on hold! You’re marooned in phone purgatory, forced to endure hold music so bad and soul-crushing it was clearly engineered in a secret lab to make you snap and hang up.
If you’re stubborn enough to resist the robot’s siren song—the one promising you won’t lose your spot if you just throw in the towel and they will call you back—you might actually win the lottery. A real person answers right as you’re about to hang up. It’s downright uncanny how they know the exact second your spirit breaks! Now, she might sound sweet as pie and oh-so-sorry you’ve been stewing on hold for an hour, but don’t be fooled: she’s a gatekeeper who guards those doctor’s keys with her life.
Before you can get a word in edgewise, she launches into the exact same interrogation the robot just put you through. Date of birth? Zip code? Sexual orientation? Then comes the financial audit to see if you can even afford to gaze upon her highly trained boss. If you pass the wallet test, she asks you to explain—in excruciating, blush-worthy detail—why on earth you need an appointment. Once you’re thoroughly mortified, she hits you with the punchline: “Well, the doctor is awful busy, but I might be able to slide you in next season.”
You drop to your knees, weeping into the receiver, until she magically unearths a slot: 7:00 AM, one month from Tuesday. And you’re expected to thank her like she just handed you the keys to the city! You hang up feeling like the luckiest soul alive, spending the next three days turning your life upside down just to guard that golden ticket.
Then comes the kicker.
A couple weeks later, your new “best friend” at the clinic calls back. “Oh, I am so sorry,” she purrs, “but the doctor had a very important matter come up.” (Translation: His tee time got moved up). You swallow your pride and ask when His Royal Highness might grace you with his presence again, only for your sympathetic pal to sigh, “Gee, our system just crashed. Could you call back tomorrow?”
Word to the wise: check your blood pressure right before you start this whole circus. Then, after you give up on ever getting that open wound on your leg looked at, go ahead and check it again. Congratulations—you now qualify to start the whole dance over with a cardiologist!
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