Ok, do you see that title? Now I want you to hear it in an incredulous voice from your traditional, old school, doctor. “YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT?!!!”
That is what my patients hear when they go to their very conservative doctor and ask them to run the list of lab tests I want to review.
Sigh.
Let me tell you a story that you might be able to relate to.
My mom thought doctors were gods. Yep. I said it. She believed that if the doctor said it, you did it. If doctors thought it was a good idea to do something crazy and dangerous like smoke cigarettes (which they promoted from the 1930’s to the 1940’s) you could bet your shirt that smoking would be our bedtime snack. Luckily, we didn’t grow up in that time. We grew up in the time of promoting sugar over healthy fats…. but that is a soapbox for another time. Bringing this story around to current times, you may encounter a doctor who will refuse to run some very important tests.
There are a few reasons this may happen.
- An insurance adjustor may deny reimbursement for a test that is not more traditional so a more insurance-dependent doctor may not run it.
- Your insurance may require you to see a specialist to run certain tests.
- The insurance company may require you to fall outside the reference range of other, more traditional, tests before they will cover a specialized test. In other words, you aren’t sick enough yet even if you feel that you are.
- Your doctor may be up on the latest research of the 40-50 new drugs that come out every year but not have any time left to research the latest lab markers that something like a change in diet or nutritional supplementation can correct. No blame. There is a lot to learn when you are distributing a substance that has side-effects that can scare the bejezus out of you.
This is why I run lab tests for you. I am more than happy to work with your doctor if they are willing to run the tests but it won’t be the first time that someone comes back to me with half the blood work complete and we have to run it again. No one likes to be poked twice.
When I run your lab tests, you and I both know what we are looking for because educating you about how your brilliant body works is one of my favorite things to do!
Dr Stacey