There is a sort of a scam going on with Pharmacies and Doctors that I have noticed of late.
Situation 1: I went to a pharmacist near me house(Mom and pop store not a big brand pharmacy like CVS, Walgreens). This guy gave me two Covid self testing kits and told me that my insurance gives this for free. That is a bull shit lie. He made a claim for those two kits. Now I don’t need these kits and they expire in February of next year. If I legitimately need a self testing kit after February of next year, I don’t know if my insurance will allow it, because I already received two kits. He was rushing me a lot and didn’t let me think. It was late at night so I didn’t realize what happened till I signed all the paper works and I had the two kits in my hand 😐
Situation 2: I went to a dentist in NYC. I had a dental x-ray done in June of last year then I switched jobs in December. I went to this dentist in February and he was harassing me to get an X-ray in February. My insurance only allows 1 X-Ray in 3 years or something. His argument was that my old X-Ray is not clear. Now I am not a dentist but that sounds like an absolute bullshit lie. I got the X-Ray done in mid town NYC. He wanted to bombard my mouth with X-rays unnecessarily because he could make money off of me. He was also harassing me to get my Wisdom teeth removed. They were not bothering me in any way. When I went to India, I asked my family doctor about it and he told me that I don’t have to get my Wisdom teeth removed unless they inconvenience me in anyway. me in anyway. He also told me that the prevalent philosophy in dental communities these days is to preserve teeth and only remove them if it is absolutely necessary.
Situation 3: I have Tinnitus and I went to an ENT in NYC. He barely talked about my Tinnitus and convinced me that I have sleep Apnea which I don’t. He had a questionnaire and for every question that I answered as 4 or 5 out of 10, he would go about twisting the question, asking me dubious follow up questions to get me to change my answer to an 8 or 9. I monitor my sleep with my smart watch and I sleep for 7 to 8 hours every day. My sleep score is consistently high. I have never had any issues with sleep. He was harassing me to get a sleep study done. My insurance would kick in after I paid 2K dollars, so this was going to come out of my pocket. He was trying to get me to spend 200$ on a sleep study that I absolutely didn’t need.
Situation 4: THE MOST SCARIEST EXPERIENCE I HAD IN THE LAST 5 or 6 YEARS WAS WHEN I WENT TO THIS DOCTOR: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=arthur+a+katz#This dude apparently tries to push his own medicines and injections. He barely looked at my report and took out an injection. It was obvious to me that he didn’t read anything in that report. I got up and walked out. He was begging me to take the injection. He was saying that it would solve all of my problems. I refused that injection. After I came back, I read through the google reviews and I can see he has pulled this shit on a lot of people. Apparently a lot of people experienced painful side effects from his injections. This was one situation where quick thinking really saved me from a lot of pain.
All in all, I am finding most of the doctors and pharmacists I go to in the NYC/NJ area to be a little bit shady. They look at my insurance and they start trying to think of ways in which they can sell me a remedy or medicine. It doesn’t matter to them if that remedy or medicine helps me in anyway. They just want to make a claim to my insurance and get money out of my insurance.
I absolutely don’t care about my insurance company, but I feel they my best interest at heart. When I go through the Google/Yelp reviews of these doctors/pharmacists, I find a lot of people are experiencing the same things that I did. How should I deal with this kind of non-sense?