Doctor-dentist article about Maine (sales, opthamologist, buy)

[msina]

Maine dental clinics have set up an internship for those graduating from dental school hoping to draw and keep some young dentists to life in Maine. The clinic in Bangor is good and they'll take you in an emergency.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by msina

Maine dental clinics have set up an internship for those graduating from dental school hoping to draw and keep some young dentists to life in Maine. The clinic in Bangor is good and they'll take you in an emergency.

That sounds great!

[BoundtofindME]

We have two wonderful dentists in our tiny village of just 285 people. It's a father/daughter team that also has a practice up in Dover-Foxcroft and they split their time between the two locations. We were their first customers when they opened up their practice in our town. We are so fortunate!

[angelo129]

There has been some coverage on this in newspapers lately, but many people are unaware that the state of Maine has not reimbursed doctors or hospitals for the services they've provided for Maine Care patients for several years now. This has put doctors out of business, forcing hospitals to buy their practices from them, and it threatens to close hospitals as well. I don't profess to know what the answer is, but something must change dramatically and soon or we will no longer have anything that can be called a health care system by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, health care is a problem everywhere. In few other places is it, however, as broken as it is in Maine.

[Northern Maine Land Man]

"I have sutured my children while standing in a hospital ER, but I would have preferred to have been in a facility that had a doctor in it."

I once sutured the foot of a very drunk E-6. He had stepped on a broken beer bottle while barefoot. Never did find his shoes. I'll tell you about it sometime.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by Northern Maine Land Man

"I have sutured my children while standing in a hospital ER, but I would have preferred to have been in a facility that had a doctor in it."

I once sutured the foot of a very drunk E-6. He had stepped on a broken beer bottle while barefoot. Never did find his shoes. I'll tell you about it sometime.

So you know what I am saying.

This is one of the things that I love about Maine!

Say I trip, fall and I cut a wee slit across my belly. Well in Maine I can go into a hospital and the fella who stuffs my intestines back in me and stitches me up, he will have gone to college and medical school. I will not have to help him to put the thread through the needle each time. Or talk to the kid to calm him and try to keep him from tossing his cookies each time he looks at my belly. In Maine he will be a trained professional. he will be able to operate a suture without throwing up. These docs in Maine are great!

We love Maine!

It is like when we go in to have blood drawn. My Dw comments every time. For decades any time that we have had to have blood drawn, they jab and miss, they twist the needle this way, then that way, 'looking' around, hoping to hit an artery. It hurts, and you come away with a blue arm.

Here in Maine, we go into the med lab place in Bangor, and they hit an artery each time. No twisting the needle around 'looking', no jabbing multiple times. They hit it the first time, and neither of us has walked away with a blue arm.

We have not been treated this good since the 1970s.

I would move to Maine simply for the well trained and professional medical personnel.

I love Maine

As long as I served in the US Military I could tell you a lot of stories about Federal Health Care.

This here in Maine is wonderful.

[cebdark]

Originally Posted by angelo129

There has been some coverage on this in newspapers lately, but many people are unaware that the state of Maine has not reimbursed doctors or hospitals for the services they've provided for Maine Care patients for several years now. This has put doctors out of business, forcing hospitals to buy their practices from them, and it threatens to close hospitals as well. I don't profess to know what the answer is, but something must change dramatically and soon or we will no longer have anything that can be called a health care system by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, health care is a problem everywhere. In few other places is it, however, as broken as it is in Maine.

You are so correct, it's not even funny. Businesses who pay a living wage and provide reasonable benefits need a heck of a lot more incentive from the state to move into Maine (that is, if they haven't all yet been outsourced to India). Otherwise, we will pay for it more and more on the other end in the form of taxes/fees to cover Mainecare costs. I know many people like to complain about "welfare queens" on Mainecare, and in some cases justifiably so, but as a matter of record, there are a vast number of working poor who are also covered under Mainecare.
Dental work in particular is limited, and many dentists won't accept Mainecare patients (that goes for some general practitioners as well). They simply cannot absorb the cost of Maine not paying their bills.

I don't profess to know what the answer is either, but I appreciate your pointing that out. If you or I didn't pay our bills, what do ya 'spose would happen?

[Valley Living]

I would rather live in Maine with no teeth than have teeth and live in Chicago. I just came back from there and I just could not live with the noise and speed there.

[gussie]

Sorry, but I would rather have my teeth. Chicago is a beautiful city. There are beautiful places like Oak Park, Evanston.. places you can get on the train and get into the city..Excellent transportation where you don't need a car... I am a from the midwest and I still love being able to go to Chicago to a Cubs game or Milwaukee to Summer fest.. This isolation here is for a chosen few. It is beautiful here.. but as we get older. I want to be around excellent medical and dental care , which unfortunately Maine does not have.. How many stories have I heard about people having to be transported all the way to Boston. which is totally ridiculous!

[cebdark]

Originally Posted by gussie

Sorry, but I would rather have my teeth. This isolation here is for a chosen few. It is beautiful here.. but as we get older. I want to be around excellent medical and dental care , which unfortunately Maine does not have.. How many stories have I heard about people having to be transported all the way to Boston. which is totally ridiculous!

Yes, there are tradeoffs for living the way Mainers do. Portland and Boston are two places that many people find the need to go to be treated for some medical conditions. It's unfortunate, but reality in some cases - that said, there are many fine medical practices here, but the dental dearth continues on.

Many of the docs here are people who entertain the same "philosophies" as indigenous Mainers do. There are the ones who stay long enough to pay off their "incentives" but the ones who have been here for many years, tend to be "Mainers" at heart. I think that the sheer expense of dental procedures however, tends to lend itself to the fact that you really need patients who have the capacity to pay off their bills. Otherwise, your practice ends up in the red, and realistically speaking, dentists haven't become adept at grouping together under the "umbrella" of major institutions as is common now with medical practices falling in under hospitals and "Healthcare Foundations."

If there is a single doc that still hangs his or her shingle out at a local corner house anywhere in the state of Maine, I'd be surprised to say the least. Most of them have grouped with institutions to share the expense (legal and cost to do business) since the advent of "managed care" primarily - that's when I noticed the new trend among practices to say to heck with the hoops that insurance company "bean counters" required them to jump through, that's not why they got into the business to begin with. It wasn't just simple state and federal "regulation" IMHO, it was the constant placement of yet another "hand in the till" that drove most private practices to ban together.

Dentists seem to have been able to squeeze under the radar of that mess thusfar. I haven't quite figured that one out yet 'tho. I suspect it will come sooner or later as more information comes out about how bad teeth can cause other serious health issues, and some other "health fad movement" comes along and jumps on the $$$ bandwagon. Oops...did I say that?