Getting good healthcare in cities can be difficult.

Remember the good old days that when you needed to see a doctor, you could call? Someone at the front desk would answer and you would set up an appointment. No problem. It is still that way in small towns and cities.

Larger cities have turned into a healthcare horror. The doctors seem to be trying to put as many layers as they can between themselves and their patients. I have been having the frustration of dealing with this. My mother's PCP is sick, so he is retiring. We are having to find a new PCP. I have been doing the research, trying to find good candidates. The results are always the same. I call and get a voice routing system. I make a choice and get routed to a person who is apparently working for a huge group of doctors as a whole. They then say they need to connect me to an office with a smaller group of doctors. But I don't get a real person, I get a voice mail system that makes a list of information for me to give in the message I leave. This includes name, birthday, which doctor, insurance, and what the problem is, along with other things I forget by the time I'm leaving the message. Then the offices either don't call back or call back to tell you they don't work with the insurance carrier.

I am beyond frustration at the moment. I wonder if there is any way that the healthcare system could make it worse for caregivers. I sure miss the old family doctors that were a simple phone call away.