I was called at work today by Liam's school - fever and sore throat, come pick him up. Uh-oh. He was just sick two weeks ago. I'm not one of those parents that runs to the doctor or emergency at the first sign of a cold. However, good friends of ours are in the middle of a scary situation with their little girl who Emily and Liam are very close to and we were told that if any of us has symptoms such as fever or sore throat, to get to a doctor. Liam had both.
The kids have check ups scheduled for this Friday, but I didn't want to wait until then. We have had our family doctor for over ten years and he recently changed practices. We received a letter from him explaining this 'new' system that he is now part of. To be honest, it sounded like a privatized cult which I wasn't very excited about. Plus his new location is a fair distance from where he was before. But, we really like him so I made an initial appointment for a 'meet & greet.' Did I mention we've been his patients for ten years? Anyways, he explained that rather than being paid per patient visit, they are paid by patient per year, which basically means you are registered with them and are not allowed to go elsewhere if you have an issue, except Emergency of course. They also have an after hours clinic that only their patients have access to. Who knew? Still, I wasn't completely convinced..until tonight. I called Health Link when I got home as they manage the after hours clinic's appointments. And because we're registered with our doctor, we can't just go to a walk-in clinic. Unfortunately I find Health Link useless and the nurse told me to call my doctor in the morning and see if I can get Liam in then. Give him popsicles to suck on in the meantime. However, ten minutes later, the after hours clinic called saying they want to see him tonight and our appointment is in 45 minutes. Wow. So I quickly gave Liam something to eat (and a popsicle) and we headed to the clinic. We saw the doctor within 5 minutes of arriving and were home within an hour (made an A&W stop as Liam felt like a burger and when I was little, my parents' rule was that when we were sick, we got whatever we wanted food-wise; I now follow the same rule). So I am not sure why this type of medical system isn't more common. Apparently our clinic is the only one in Calgary who uses this system and they've been doing it for about 10 years. Let me tell you, I was extremely impressed and will tell my doctor on Friday that I'm convinced and happy to be part of his practice.
