@juniperjgin
I lived in western South Dakota for much of my adult life and love the northern states. It is challenging to find good medical support in the rural areas, however, and winter highways are nothing to trifle with. It sounds like you’re making good progress and putting together a viable team.
In larger systems they have social work support. I am perhaps a little biased because I was a medical social worker prior to retirement, but I have great confidence in what social workers can do to make things easier for patients. I’ll give you an example…I’m on a plethora of medication’s for various problems and I wanted to start taking curcumin. I was concerned about any interaction that this may have with medication that I’m taking. So I sent a favorable curcumin study that I found to my social worker and asked her to pass it on to my PCP. Yesterday, Saturday no less, I got a call from an hospital system pharmacist who walked through the counter indications with me and suggested dosage. My physician didn’t do that… She kind of shrugged and said, “ OK if you want to try that that’s fine.”
It was the social worker who connected me with the right person.
I have asked for their help to expedite appointments, to get referrals processed in a timely manner and even to help work with the billing department to code properly, so my insurance company will be receptive.
You might consider utilizing this resource if one is available.
Thank you for your thoughtful response and I hope that you will continue to share your insights with our members.