It's time for x-ray (a brief explanation of the health care system in Italy)
This morning I went to the hospital to take a chest x-ray because I have a cough from about a month and my doctor said me he need to watch an x-ray to know better what kind of care I have to do. Thinking about the different health care system in other countries, I decided to wrote a post about it, so you can understand how the health care works in Italy (to be correct, I'm talking about my experience with the health care in Tuscany, that is a region in a center of Italy with a good health care system).
So, you have to know tha in Italy the health care system is a mix of public and private systems, connected each others thanks some deals. The healt care is provided to every italian citizen thanks the public SSN (Servizio Sanitario Nazionale) that is under the Helth's Ministry, but organized on regional basis.
Every citizen have a "family doctor" totally free (it's paid by the SSN) who visit his patients and who can prescribe medicines, diagnostic tests and specilist doctors visits. We can buy the prescribed medicine paying just a copay (free for poor people), the same for diagnostic tests or specilist doctors visits that are provided by our public hospital or by some accredited private clinics. The waiting times are different for public hospital and accredited clinics and they are between few weeks to some months, it also depends from region to region and from city to city. If your doctor think you need an urgent visits or tests, the waiting times are really short and I want to share my experience of this days.
Yesterday I was to my family doctor because I have a cough from about a month, medicines didn't work and so I was a little worried. My doctor said to me I needed to do the chest x-ray to understand if I have some problems with my lungs before to try new medicines and he said me it was urgent. Ok, I was really worried because I thought to have something bad (don't worry, it was just an irrational fear). The doctor prescribed to me an urgent chest x-ray yesterday and this morning I went to the public hospital in my city where I could do it immedialy. I paid the copay of € 36 (about $ 42) and after 1 hour I had the result. It's all ok, everything is ok in my chest and I'm more quiet then tonight ^_^
This was an urgent prescription and so the waiting time was really short, but it's not the same fo not urgent visits or tests, because sometimes you need to wait some months for them (or you can pay a private specialist doctor to have a date before).
If you have some urgent health problems like an accident or a great pain in the night, you can go to the public hospital, in the ER, where the doctor take care of you totally free. The hospitalization and the tests/visits during the hospitalization are totally free for the patients and ( subject to exception) the health care is good here ^_^
Well, now that I'm more quiet about my health, I need to clean my backyard ^_^
See ya soon and steem on!
Silvia
What good news to know that there is nothing wrong with your lungs, I would have worried like you if I have a month with cough, but you can be calmer for sure that the new medicine will work well, soon you will be cured
How is the quality of care though? I live in the US and notice some places, the doctors treat you as a number. They try to see as many patients in a day as possible to get the most money possible. They fail to give the patients the quality of care.
Still other doctors are the opposite. My current doctor will spend as much time with me as needed.
My monthly medical premium is about $200. X-rays, ultra sounds, surgeries, emergency visits are all free, but I do pay $7 for a medication and $15 for a doctor visit.
I have really good insurance.
The same here, some doctors are really good, some doctors are not so good but we can choose our family doctor and it's great. About the insurance here in Italy just some people pay an insurance for health care (just some kind of workers like managers) because the free public system is good almost like the private system.
Good to hear you are coughing in a healthy way 8-). Maybe you just need better dust masks when you are woodworking.