Fire your Doctor – Healthcare Reform

We all admit our health care system is broken and needs reform.  The biggest culprit appears to be the lobbying power of pharmaceutical and insurance companies controlling our politicians.  The scope of the issue makes us, the ones who receive health care, feel powerless.

As health care customers, we don’t actually deal with the pharmaceutical companies and only occasionally with insurance companies, but we have a middleman – our doctor.  To an individual, the face of health care is our doctor.

We need to let our doctors know that we demand a different system.  We demand customer service focused on promoting our health first and not promoting pharmaceutical drugs.  If we want to reform health care, we need to fire our doctor.

The first step to firing our doctors is to hire ourselves as our number one health care provider.  We need to take full responsibility for our health.  No one will argue with two simple facts about health care – diet and exercise are important.

So if you are fed up with the health care debate and want to do something about it then take care of yourself.  Start to exercise by walking 15 minutes a day and remove one bad food from your diet.  Health care begins with you and you can start a reform today – get up and go for a walk.

Home HIV Test Results

I called the Home Access lab with my private code number to get my HIV test results and was happy to receive a Negative result.  The phone call to the 800 number was very quick compared to the call that I had to make to register my test.  I was on the phone less than 3 minutes with an automated system that prompted me to enter the code and the the test result of Negative was provided.

One disclaimer was stated on the phone message:

“A ‘negative’ result means antibodies to HIV-1 were not found in your test sample.  A negative test result generally means you are not infected with HIV-1.  This service may yield a negative result if you were infected during the six months before this testing, because antibodies to HIV-1 do not develop immediately after infection occurs. ”

After the phone results the automated system gave you instructions to receive your test results by mail or email.  The email results were very easy, you just emailed hivresult@homeaccess.com with your code number in the body of the email.  The test results were sent within 24 hours as a pdf attachment to my email.  I had the results sent to my regular email account, but you could set up a free anonymous email account to receive your results since again they never asked your name and you only needed to provide the code number.

I highly recommend the Home Access HIV Test since the process of a home hiv test is private, anonymous and convenient.  You can feel confident in the accuracy of the test results because the test is FDA approved and you can save time by not having to go to a clinic or doctor’s office.  My test results were available 5 days after I mailed them or you can upgrade to the HIV Express Kit and have your results the next day.  Overall, I was very impressed with the kit, instructions and private interaction with the laboratory.

Home AIDS Test

I have had the Home Access HIV-1 Test System that I ordered from Home Health Testing sitting on my dresser for over a week now.  I was tested for HIV over ten years ago and do not have any reason to believe that I have been at risk, but for some reason there is still a hesitancy to take the test.  I chose to take a home aids test for convenience and after learning that it is FDA approved and 99.9% accurate.  My procrastination in taking the test would have been much more prolonged if I needed to make an appointment and go to a doctor or health care facility.  I will say having to look at the box sitting in my home for several days has made me finally sit down and do it.  So if you or someone else has been dragging their feet and putting off taking an HIV test then this is a surefire way to get it done — order a home hiv test and sit it right in front of you for a few days.

The Home Access HIV Test is an anonymous test so you are required to call the 800 number and register the code in your test kit with the lab so later you can retrieve your test results by the code number.  The call to the 800 number is available 24 hours a day and is an automated system.  First you enter your eleven digit code when prompted and then you are required to answer 8-10 questions about your sex, race, zipcode and whether you have tested before.  The questions continue and ask you what you expect your test results to be, if you have had sex with males or females and if you have used needles.  At first the questions came as a surprise to me, but then I remembered the answers are only associated with my eleven digit code — not with my name.  This is really why a home hiv test is more private than going to answer those questions in front of a stranger at a clinic.

The next steps are pretty straight forward, wash your hands, use the lancet to prick your finger and fill the circle with a blood sample.  The circle on the sample card is pretty large and takes 5-10 drops of blood to fill the circle, but the instructions stress that if they do not receive enough of  a blood sample that they will not be able to test it.  The kit has a second lancet in it if you need to prick another finger to get enough blood.  I was able to fill the circle from one finger stick, but it took some squeezing of my finger to produce enough drops.

Allow the sample to dry for thirty minutes and then put it in the sample return pouch and mail in the enclosed mailer.  I purchased the standard kit which means my results will be available in seven business days after I mail it.  There is an Express Home HIV Test that offers next day results after you send the sample in the prepaid FedEx mailer, this kit costs about $10 more than the standard.

My only surprise in taking the test was the number of “survey” type questions when I called in to register my code number.  I anticipated a thirty second phone call to just type in my code at the 800 number, but the phone call was 6 1/2 minutes because of the information they give you and then the questions asked.  If you are taking this test, set aside enough time and privacy to allow for the longer phone call and then to allow your blood sample to dry for thirty minutes — don’t start this test when you are rushing out the door or trying to do it quickly before someone returns home.

I will call the 800 number in seven business days and let you know how the process concludes – oh, also I will let you know what my status is.

Home Cholesterol Test

A few months ago I had a full blood panel performed at my doctor’s office and requested a copy of the results for my personal health file.  My total cholesterol level on the laboratory results was 134 mg/dL which is superb since being under 200 mg/dL is the “Desirable” level of total cholesterol for good health.  This made my competitive spirit happy since I clearly had a desirable level of cholesterol or I guess that would be a desirable level of lack of cholesterol.

Yesterday, I performed a home cholesterol test to see how the test worked and compare the results with my laboratory results.  CholesTrak is a total cholesterol testing kit available for home use with results in twelve minutes.  The CholesTrak test kit is FDA approved for home use and purports to quickly and accurately read your total cholesterol level.

The test comes with a testing device, results chart, finger stick lancet, gauze pad, bandaid and instructions.  The basic steps of the test are to wash your hands, use the lancet to stick your finger and draw blood, drop the blood sample into the test device, wait and then read results.  The instruction brochure had several pictures along the way to give you guidance on the steps and how to use the test device.  They also have an 800 phone number in the instructions and invite you to call the “help line” with questions as you take the test.

The finger lancet in the kit is very nice and definitely not painful to use.  You never see the blade which is good.  After you stick your finger you have to drop enough blood drops in the test device to fill this little well which seemed to be about three large drops of blood for me.  Once you fill the blood well, you have to set a timer for 3 minutes and then you will pull a tab off the side of the test device which appears to activate the test.

Now you wait again, this time for 10-12  minutes after pulling the tab  in order to read your results on the test device.   In the instructions it says to “…read test results under bright light within 15 minutes.  Find the very tip of the blue/purple color bar in the Measurement Scale, even if fuzzy or faint.”  While this sounds very easy, when you go to read the test device it is not quite clear the exact number of your reading.  Depending on the light you are in or how good your eyesight is, the result can seem to vary on the scale.  The first time I looked at it, I thought my result was 19.5 on the scale which would result in a total cholesterol of 138 mg/Dl.  I asked someone else to look at it and where they thought the very tip of the color bar was and they read it as 20.5 which is a total cholesterol of 148 mg/Dl.

I had a friend perform the test with the other test device that is in the box (it comes with two tests) and she had the same result, we both read a different number, but the range of total cholesterol with the two readings for her was 196-205.

So my test results were 138-148 compared to my lab results of 134 — pretty good.  Even with the range on the test result, the results are accurate and the test is easy to conduct at home with results in less than 15 minutes.  The Cholestrak test is $17.99 for two test devices which have a shelf life of over a year – you can buy the kit and use one now and then test yourself again in six months or a year.  For the price and the instant results this test did the job and is recommended for learning your total cholesterol level.