Unfortunately doctors have no magic fixes for back pain related to muscular strains or degenerative disease/arthritis, which is most back pain. Treatments are basically physical therapy and nsaid medications. Surgery for low back pain from degenerative disease/arthritis alone has poor evidence with most randomized trials suggesting no difference. Even opiates fail to show any superiority over nsaids (like ibuprofen or naproxen) for back pain. Not saying don’t see your doctor about bad persistent back pain, there’s always edge cases or bizarre causes that may need addressing. But unfortunately no magic bullet for the vast majority of typical low back pain.
Review on surgery indications in back pain ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10107811/#mja251…
Randomized trial of opioid and nsiads in back pain, hip pain, and knee pain from degenerative disease/arthritis pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29509867/
Also, I know it’s a meme, but the billing code doctors use for even the most complicated of visits going over an hour and involving multiple potentially life threatening conditions or treatments isn’t anywhere close to $3000. Let alone a visit for routine back pain which wouldn’t qualify for anything like the highest billing codes.
Agreed. I'm currently trying to fix my shoulders. Turns out the fix to "some of your muscles are too powerful and some aren't enough" is not an easy one and consists mostly in slowly and painfully correcting your posture with targeted exercises. Daily. For months.
I'm almost to the point where I say fuck it, I'll just train through pain and hopefully it will fix itself at some point. It worked for my tennis elbow after all... XD
If the doctor needs an mri and your insurance won’t cover the mri $3k isn’t far off. I’ve been in that position before. Had to give the radiology folks $500 down payment and then let them send the rest to collections to get an mri so my doctor could ultimately not to jack shit to help me, but her still charged me too. Fuck America.
That’s true! But the mri costs are billed by the facility and hospital and generally have nothing to do with the doctor. Doubly the insurance and hospitals play games with each other, so the billed amounts end up being way more if not paying with insurance. I get bugged by memes and statements suggesting that doctors are the driver of the cost when it’s actually insurance companies, health care facilities, hospitals, medical equipment companies, and pharmaceuticals that are primarily driving all of this. Your doctor probably wanted to be sure there was nothing dangerous or abnormal. If it only showed arthritis there’s usually not much more that can be done besides pt and nsaids. Even the radiologist fee is a small part of the actual mri charge. Doctors just want to get people the tests and treatments that are indicated, but are the person people actually interact with so tend to take all the blame. I agree with you our health system is a mess.
People say the content of the meme in all seriousness all the time too is mainly why, thinking the doctor is responsible for that cost. I didn’t want it to become an attack on OP though, not my intent. And maybe my comments will encourage more wholesome memes about evil health care administrators and insurance company execs instead, the true enemy, haha.
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