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My wife and I are considering retiring near the Greenville, SC area. But we are concerned about the quality of the healthcare facilities. They all seem to have a poor overall rating. Can anyone provide more information in this matter? This specific matter is very important in our decision to retire to that area.
Since this is very important to you and the reports you have gotten so far are negative, I would suggest that you take a pass on Greenville, however you may get a different opinion if you posted your question on the South Carolina forum, rather than the South Dakota forum.
But we are concerned about the quality of the healthcare facilities. They all seem to have a poor overall rating...
Where did you obtain your objective information? Please provide links or evidence to the "poor overall rating".
The Upstate of SC is a huge area and Greenville itself has two competing giant health systems: Greenville Health System ("GHS") and Bon Secours St. Francis Health System ("St. Francis"). GHS is the largest health system in the state of SC (and getting larger).
Your claims of poor healthcare in Upstate SC are dubious at best - have you visited this area?
Its been my general observation, that those who complain the most about the healthcare system here, are the ones who get it for free. I generally put off going to the doctor, ER or healthcare in general unless I absolutely have to, mainly because I don't care to deal with all the dope heads and crack pots in the ERs, and the people with the flu who tie up the doctors office and coughing and hacking their heads up sitting beside me. My last ER visit was Jan 2015, but it was for a heart condition and I was brought in in a red and white limo, so I went straight back. I od have an appointment with a ortho doctor Thursday, but I put off making the appointment for 3 weeks, pain finally got to be too much.
My wife and I are considering retiring near the Greenville, SC area. But we are concerned about the quality of the healthcare facilities. They all seem to have a poor overall rating. Can anyone provide more information in this matter? This specific matter is very important in our decision to retire to that area.
Think of it like this..
Greenville is a thoroughly modern city in a first-world country in the 21st century. So with that as our guideline, I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess there aren't any witch doctors treating cancer with voodoo magic.
My experience at GHS was limited pregnancy and labor and delivery but I had a good experience overall. There was only one nurse who I didn't care for out of all the ones I had experience with and multiple I loved. Your doctors choices are usually done by selecting a practice who works with a hospital unless you have emergencies and there isn't a lack of good doctors. Of all the reasons to not choose Greenville the healthcare isn't one of them.
I would say the quality of care is better than average. People do have complaints like ER wait times, crabby nurse, poor bedside manner from an MD etc but that doesn't mean the quality of care is crap. That's just my opinion.
If you have chronic health issues, there are many internal medicine physicians and specialists such that you can find someone you click with to manage your care.
That said, be aware which nearby hospital is Stroke center or Cath lab in case you may need those services. Ex: Chest pain --go to GHS main campus or Bon Secours Downtown campus.
We recently retired in the area moving from upstate NY. We divided our care between mostly GHS, and one provider in Medical group of the Carolina's for Endocrinology, and found the doctors to be very good. Primary care, endo, Cardio, GI all great. We had several procedures in the Greer and Greenville facility that have been excellent including an ER visit.
My experience with the ratings is that they are a bit hard to map to your own experience. For example, where we came from a specific hospital was known for cardiac procedures. The ratings were low, but they specialized in the "hard cases", many of which did not do well. So local folks knew they were a great place to go, but from the ratings you would avoid as the ratings lumped the complexity of the case into the overall evaluation w/o any differentiation.
I think you will do fine here, but as in any location you need to map your needs to the available care and your comfort with the providers.
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