

Ask HN: What's healthcare like in Silicon Valley? - diminium

Here's an odd question.  What's healthcare like in Silicon Valley?<p>I don't live there and from what I tend to find is doctors and healthcare personnel around my area's don't like inquisitive people like me.  Every time I ask them a question about my condition and so forth, they try to find whatever they can to escape hoping I'll just follow instructions blindly and get better.<p>Now in an area filled to the brim of inquisitive people, what's the healthcare there like?  Do the doctors enjoy spending the time necessary to answer the questions?  Are the hospitals filled with technologies that everyone is curious about using?  How is it like over there?
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devs1010
I'm from the north bay area, its a bit more sparsely populated than the south
bay but have been around the whole bay area a lot. Actually, also my dad is a
doctor so have had probably have had more exposure to medical people than the
average person. I've found most doctors I came into contact with willing to
answer questions, etc but doctors still always seem a bit rushed and want to
move on to the next patient. However, for the most part they didn't seem to
get annoyed with asking complex questions or me showing assertiveness, they
just had the general attitude of "not wanting to spend too much time on a
patient". I haven't had any major health issues, however, so these weren't
necessarily serious life or death issues either, which may have contributed to
some of the brevity

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uncleremus
I've found doctors in the Sunnyvale/Mountain View to be very receptive to my
geek questions. I can think of 3 positive examples and no negative examples. I
once asked a doctor if he would get my Strep Throat test results in "real
time?" He asked me what other time was there and we spent a lot of time
talking about batch jobs, real time processing, etc.

I recommend PAMF.

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pasbesoin
I don't know about the Valley, per se, but my cousin in the greater East Bay
area absolutely hates Kaiser after several major SNAFU's in her personal life.
Among the worst: A Kaiser physician misdiagnosed her friend's cancer for two
years, and also refused to refer for a second opinion when symptoms persisted
and worsened. That friend subsequently died.

I mention this because, as I understand it, Kaiser is a big force in
California -- that would include in the Valley. And at times they seem to
receive significant positive press for what is touted as their program of...
"cooperative" patient management combined with "effective" cost controls.

Anecdotal, but from my cousin as well as other people in my own life, I've
heard rather a different story.

P.S. I guess I can mention that my cousin is a rather successful and well-
connected health care practitioner, herself. So she's approached and dealt
with this from something other than a clueless perspective. (I don't know
about her friend, though.)

~~~
devs1010
Some people love Kaiser, others hate it, it seems you never find someone in
the middle. I've never been a member of theirs myself so don't know first-
hand.

