Speaking of the VA hospital and MUSC.. (Charleston: extended stay, health insurance)

[Maryjane55us]

I'd like to hear personal opinions (esp from the seniors on board) about which hospital(s) in the Charleston area provides the best care should we move there.

We've always gotten great care over the years with most of our primary physicians, but have had poor experiences the few times we've needed hospitals. So you can see why this is an important issue to me as we grow older.

My husband will be on VA care this year and I really hope nothing bad happens to him, because most VA hospitals we've had experience with have terrible doctors and care. (I've got an 18" scar from gall bladder surgery at age 25 to prove it)

Here locally, my husband has to call and leave a message to try to get an appt at the satelite clinic. Sometimes they call back, sometimes they don't. Tough luck if you need to see someone asap.

The VA doctor that did his 'annual' put him on diuretic BP meds, (later private dr's said he didn't even need BP med). The diuretics set off vomiting, a grand mal seizure, electrolyte imbalance, and the subsequent stroke he had after a week in ICU at our local university teaching hospital.

Now, he's on disability and his BCBS insurance has expired and will not renew his coverage. It was the only time he'd ever even used his private insurance. We stupidly thought it would be a good idea to get established with a local VA doctor before retirement.

After VA hospitals on my s**t list are university teaching hospitals, like ours were he was admitted. Lots of doctor-like people, mostly students chit-chatting, but very little answers or knowledge of who was in charge. Never did see the doctor in charge, and didn't find out her name until after discharge. No instructions to see a neurologist or any follow up whatever. Didn't even find out about the stroke until we followed up on our own and went to a neurologist after discovering his memory was off.

So, as you can see, I'm very VERY concerned about hospitals, hospital doctors and their reputations wherever we move.

I know the Charleston area has several choices of hospitals, old and new. (I was born at Roper). And new ones are popping up in the Mt Pleasant area.

So.. any retired VETs or seniors out there on Medicare who can recommend good treatment and experiences??

[guttata]

Sorry to hear about your experiences with the VA and teaching hospitals. Personally, I don't feel that you can generalize that all VAs and teaching hospitals are terrible. However, from my experience, I will say that things are much more inefficient at VAs in general. It is easy when you have the government footing the bill. I also find a good number of govt employee who take advantage of their job security - caring more about break time than patient continuity and care. Now, this does not apply to every employee.

You should always be able to find the name of the physician in charge (attending physician) at a university hospital. It is always on the chart. The medical students, residents, nurses should know the attending physician. The attending physician generally meets/rounds with the students, residents, some ancillary staff everyday - on every patient. During an extended stay (over a month), the attending may change. The benefit of a university hospital is having lots of subspecialty care. Some data will skew the morbidity and mortality for teaching hospitals - but these rates are higher because they see sicker patients. The teaching hospitals like MUSC probably see sicker patients (and thus, are better able to treat them) than private hospitals.

Medicine is changing. For the most part, internists and family docs in private practice will not round/visit their patient (once in the hospital). They usually hire a hospitalist that covers any patients in the hospital - OR, the patient will be admitted to the hospital attending physician. Then, the private docs will see them after discharge. Private docs offices are going to be much more efficient than hospital care.

There are good and bad docs everywhere. Some hospitals may be better at certain specialties than others. I would just try to find one that is covered by your insurance - and to not be afraid to change docs if necessary. I guess I didn't really answer your question about hospital reputation, but I have not heard of one dominant hospital in the area.

[OleTomCat]

When I was in the Navy here the Naval Hospital was top rate, but I think it is only for active duty and military retirees. The VA hospital did a friends bipass surgery about 5 years ago, and then treated him after he took a nasty fall last year. All in all not too bad, I don't use the VA hospital myself so I am unsure as to their day to day operations.

I am not going to get on my soap box here about government run health care....

[jenn7110]

Hubby uses the VA since we lost our health insurance when I got laid off. He's pretty happy with his primary physician. He's also recently had surgery at the VA hospital here, and was overall pleased with his care. I don't think he's had any problems having calls to his primary doctor returned, and they send out so many appointment reminders it's almost comical (2-3 letters in the mail for each appointment, plus a phone call a day or two before the appointment).

Some friends of ours have not had good experiences with MUSC, particularly the emergency room.