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Old 04-12-2017, 12:52 PM
 
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Somewhat related anecdote.

Some friends are living in a place in SF. It's not in the densest part of The City but there are some really good commercial areas within walking distance. To boot, there is a major hospital within walking distance. It ain't gonna be closing unless we hit the Zombie Apocalypse. Bonus - they say their power never goes out. The hospital's generators are pretty beefy plus PG&E gives that area extra attention.
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Old 04-12-2017, 01:05 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
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The trend of rural/small town hospitals closing or consolidating with larger entities predates ACA by decades.
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Old 04-12-2017, 01:31 PM
 
Location: South Carolina
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I do think the ACA will implode eventually and then the hospitals will really feel it .Yes hospitals closing predates the ACA.
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Old 04-12-2017, 01:51 PM
 
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Our hospital system here in our area is fantastic. Has won all kinds of awards.

The hospital system, owns the huge hospital complex in Billings, and keeps expanding with more buildings.

They also own hospitals/medical centers in smaller towns. Ours was replaced 2 years ago, and has hospital and the doctors services in the same building. Specialists are in the big hospital in the city, but some travel on a regular basis to the smaller medical clinics to service patients. The hospital has a special room with large screen telecommunication to connect to the large hospital specialists with test equipment and nurses trained to do the tests, which are read as conducted at Billings. This system is one of only 7 in the nation, that are affiliates with the Mayo Clinic, and they can hook up with the Mayo Clinic as needed.

This system covers Montana, Western half of the Dakotas, and northern half of Wyoming, Plus a section of southern Canada.

The system owns two medical helicopters, and 3 twin engine turbo prop medical aircraft, to bring in patients from all over the area they cover. My daughter had to be airlifted to Billings 3 years ago. They sent in a helicopter. The flight nurse was one of the best nurses I have ever seen. Former Military flight nurse. When she comes in the other nurses get out of her way. She fully evaluates her patient, and prepares they to fly. Her reputation is, she has never lost a patient getting them to the hospital. Her pilot and the copilot move the patient to the copter. The hospital nurses here, told me that is the best nurse in their whole system, and love to assist her in anyway they can as they learn by watching her. I have taken a couple of people to the emergency room one time each, and one in the daytime had a doctor within 5 minutes, and one in middle of the night, had one within 15 minutes.

Our system keeps building new hospitals, and clinics. They hire top quality doctors, and the doctors stay with them year after year. The two main doctors at our local clinic, started work after their internships, and have been here close to 30 years. Both have specialties. In addition my personal doctor has the reputation as the best diagnostician in the whole system. He is often called to Billings to look at a case needing his expertise.

We want small town life in our mid 80s, and this is one of the rare places in the country with the quality of medical service we can get.
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Old 04-12-2017, 02:22 PM
 
Location: Paranoid State
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fluffythewondercat View Post
Pretty much the same conclusion I came to. The small town we'd been looking at was 100 miles away from decent comprehensive medical care. There are some who will put up with that to live in a small town or rural area but we are not those people. Retirees continue to flock there, though.

I am now hearing that many physicians in that town are no longer accepting new patients.
Since retirees continue to flock there, medical services will probably follow.
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Old 04-12-2017, 02:30 PM
 
37,315 posts, read 59,697,706 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tuck's Dad View Post
I don't think the trend has anything to do with the ACA - that is insurance based regulation.

I do think the trend will move to what we have here, a small clinic open three to four days a week and run by a PA (although could be a Nurse Practitioner too) affiliated with large regional hospitals in higher population centers with more patient use to cover the overhead of advances in medical machines and the costs associated with those advances. Your check-ups and run of the mil coughs, colds, flus, and infections will be handled locally, and more sever illness will require travel - but I doubt that is truly a new trend in rural health care, most "hospitals" in rural areas are really "clinics" capability wise, not a true hospital with trauma care and specialty treatment capabilities.

Generally speaking if you have a serious illness or terminal illness, you are going to specialty clinics/hospital anyway, and travel is usually involved. I am in NW MT and serious cancer treatments go to SLC UT for treatment with local follow-up at the regional health center/hospital.
I am over 65 and grew up in Central Texas south of Austin in very, very small town---we only had a blinking traffic light at the main intersection in the town...
We had no doctor there--the closest ones were 10 miles in either direction --
One town might have still had a hospital back then and one did not...
My sister and I were helping our dad one Saturday when he worked at our local IGA store--
She was carrying out a 6 pack of glass-bottle 7Ups and one exploded in the carton...
The neck of the bottle splintered and shot up her hand...
It actually cut her artery---blood was pumping out 4 inches above her palm...
My dad had been a medic in WW2--that was the only reason she lived...
Someone in the store (no cell phones in the 50s) called the local constable--
My dad wrapped his store apron and some towels around her hand--trying to grip it tight enough to stop the arterial flow--
And the Constable drove us--my dad and me--to the town where our doctor was--I could see the speedometer and it was clocked at 90--scary...
He used his radio to get the city police to find the doctor and we met him at his office--no hospital--no nurse even...

The doctor had to deal with my sister's problem by himself--
I was sitting outside the exam room and can remember her screaming and screaming
Every time he would try to shoot anesthetic into her hand, the blood would wash it out...
She had so many stitches---like 50 inside and out--maybe more...

Have always been conscious of being "away" from medical care since then...
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Old 04-12-2017, 02:43 PM
 
Location: TN/NC
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I'm not surprised at all by this.

As a native Tennessean, I've been asked a lot of questions come across by retirees from other areas wanting to transplant, both on these boards and in real life. Many seem to think rural living is like a Gatlinburg brochure, full of wonderful mountain views and pretty streams and rivers. The reality of the situation is often more bleak, with medical services closing or hanging on by a thread, and many of the services they were used to or level of care being unavailable at any price.

Many people get a picture of a quiet, rural life, and do not think farther than the end of their noses.
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Old 04-12-2017, 02:50 PM
 
Location: Cody, WY
10,420 posts, read 14,562,278 times
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I'll never trade life where I live for a city because I'm phobic about death and disease. I pay fifty dollars per year for helicopter service should the need arise, but it hasn't yet. City people seem to have a real problem with those of us who like the country. They've previously attacked us for not being near fine dining, concerts, nightclubs, health care, and even access to street drugs. The OP in this thread tries to frighten us into living in his preferred sort of area regardless of our choices. Why does he care?

We could turn the tables and tell city people they should move for reasons ranging from high violent crime rate to light pollution of the starry skies, but we don't. I have yet to see a thread begun to discourage people from living in cities. It's all the other way around. We're not all suffering from dementia; we know we're farther from medical care. We've simply ordered our priorities differently.

Apparently, there are some who need reassurance that they made the correct choices. Rural people don't seem to have that need because, in my experience, we really don't care what others think.
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Old 04-12-2017, 03:16 PM
 
Location: The Triad
34,090 posts, read 82,726,620 times
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Find out how far a location is from a Level One Trauma Center:
Find Your Local Trauma Center - American Trauma Society

If you have that in reasonable proximity... you're likely to have all the rest too.
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Old 04-12-2017, 03:42 PM
 
9,446 posts, read 6,550,299 times
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Even if you are close to a small hospital in a rural setting, most of those hospitals are not prepared to treat heart attacks and strokes beyond initial stabilization. Then they just transfer you to a larger hospital that can give full care. After that there is the problem of visiting the person when they are so far away in hospital. Better all around for retirees to live a reasonable distance from at least one major medical facility IMO. This is one reason we left out initial retirement location (Hilo) after a few years brought more health needs.
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