Lucille: How’s my son? Doctor: He’s going to be all right. Lindsay Funke: Finally some good news from this guy. Doctor: That’s a great attitude. I got to tell you, if I was getting this news, I don’t know that I’d take it this well. Lucille: But you said he was all right. Doctor: Yes, he’s lost his left hand. So he’s going to be “all right.” Lucille: [Jumping on the doctor] You son of a bitch! I hate this doctor!

My favorite running gag, love the literal doctor

I’ve never heard of urgent care requiring referral from a pcp, that wouldn’t make any sense as the whole point of urgent care is being seen more urgently than your primary physician can accommodate. And seeing people who don’t have a primary physician and keeping them out of the ed if not necessary. I would ask your insurance for that policy in writing, that can’t be right. And if it is it should be reported to that state insurance commission because that’s totally asinine. I mean never underestimate the dumbness of insurance companies but I think something might be being lost in translation here.

This is mildly infuriating, I can give you a little more context though if you’re interested. I don’t know exactly about contracts between insurance companies and CVS so I can’t speak to that definitely. Probably something related to how much insurance is willing to pay minute clinic for such a short visit, and what things are feasible to address in such a short visit (hence CVS only allowing certain complaints).

I think this is something to do with the concept of “uncomplicated” vs “complicated” uti. Complicated utis are when there’s an increased danger of serious complications from a uti or increased likelihood of failing a typical antibiotic therapy. Utis in men are much much rarer than women, and are considered to be an automatic “complicated” uti by many. The greater length of the urethra in men helps prevent bacteria from being able to travel up to the bladder, whereas in women the short distance allows for this to happen much more frequently. So when a male has a UTI there is a much greater chance there will be complicating factors like prostate issues, structural problems, kidney stones, kidney infection, catheter use, atypical bacteria, etc. If you look more into their info on utis, they also state if they suspect any of those things, even in women, they won’t treat it and will just refer you to someone else, probably the Ed or a real urgent care clinic. Since the odds of that are much greater in men, they probably aren’t allowed to have longer appointments in minute clinic based on what insurance will pay for what they’re providing, they just decided to not see that at all in minute clinic. Looks like they do see men for sexually transmitted infections though, which are actually the most common cause of utis in young men, so if that’s a concern looks like they would be able to see people for that.

But I totally agree with you, fuck insurance companies in general.

Well that’s enough internet for today. Geeze. So glad these people are being tracked down so they can be brought to justice.

On the instances where hot is working, I think it does work pretty nicely for this. Hopefully it’ll be up and working everywhere very soon with the next update. When I’m on an account with an instance where it’s not working, I tend to switch between top-day and new. Going into individual communities as well you can easily see what was popular.

Archive links get rid of the paywall but it doesn’t play nice with some dns settings apparently. Here is the actual link but it does have the paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/business/gop-disinformation-researchers-2024-election.html:

Totally reasonable concern, fuck Russia but Pravda does have a bit of a vested interest in their reporting to say the least. In this case they’re just actually reporting what was said on a Russian propaganda outlet. Disclaimer, I know zero Russian, but a Google translate of the Russian propaganda news networks seems to confirm that Pravda is being factual and this is what Russia is saying.

https://tass-ru.translate.goog/politika/18051163?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true.

Thanks! I’ll remember that trick for next time

The Reuters article is a little light on what’s included. Wanted to post a free article anyone could access. Lots of good information, multiple lines of evidence, and interesting soviet history of the dam in the actual article Reuters is citing.