If you live in the United States and are 65 years of age or older, then you are probably using the government’s medical program for the care and well-being of the elderly–Medicare. It’s the first in line for paying medical bills.
A wellness checkup is “required” every year and mine is coming next week. Our medical group, and most probably your’s, too, starts a week ahead, checking to make sure you are coming to the appointment. I have received two texts, one email, and one phone call reminding me and asking me to do an early check-in. I’m pretty sure there will be more reminders in various forms before I actually present myself at 1:45 p.m.
The email was not only a reminder but also a questionnaire about various health issues, past and present. Part of it is designed by my medical group with a review of all medicines, illnesses, surgeries, family health through the generations. It’s what they have already have on record and want to see if there are any changes.
This year, there were pages and pages added, I believe by Medicare itself, with material asking what I had already stated. I’m thinking those repeat questions are “tricks” to see if I can answer the same way more than once.
Then there were questions about my well being that just broke my heart because I know there are people who are in the situations of which they ask…do I ever run out of food and not have money to buy more? Do I have a safe place to live? Is there a possibility that I will not have that place in the next three months? Can I handle my own medications? Can I bathe and dress myself? Do I drive? Questions about falling, whether I have or if I have fears of falling due to balance issues. Two screens along these lines, many reworded but asking for the same information.
All of this to make me think of those who live in precarious situations. A local news story had brought some of this questions to reality.
A fire in a nearby town caused the death of “an elderly woman” in her late 60s(!) because she could not get out of bed and flee the flames. Her husband had been unable to move her. The fact that the piece kept using the term elderly for someone in their 60s shattered me. How many people are in a similar situation? What about all the older people I am seeing on the streets as I travel across town?
One of the final points on the Medicare questionnaire asks if there is anything I want to discuss with the doctor that was not previously mentioned. Do I even bring this up–how the questionnaire and the news have been “triggers” or do I just leave it and keep doing my very best to remain healthy and upright and engaged in the world?
Dkzody's Weblog 
We become medically “elderly” at age 65. I learned this when a doctor described me as an “unmarried elderly woman” at a time when I was not yet 62 and had been married for nearly forty years! This experience undermined my faith in that doctor and my referring doctor. The latter liked to bully her patients and a few years later, I stopped seeing her. I have not seen a physician in years, but I have an appointment next month to see someone new.
Staying away from doctors may be a solution!
Ha! I am generally leery of medication and treatment, but I am fully vaccinated and careful about my diet. I walk daily and run a mile or two every other day. That said, when I have specifically asked for help in the past, such as with hot flashes that happened day and night for more than ten years, I found no help at all from my health care provider. Eventually something will come along that requires more from my HCP than a pat on the head. I do not look forward to that.
I know what you mean. I worry about the folks who don’t have the support and decent living situation that I do. With “80 years old” waiting for me this summer, I’m fighting it as best I can. I was able, with help, to travel across country alone (thank you, Amtrak), but I have given up and purchased a walker for times and places that I know will be uneven, rocky, or traps to trip on. I give thanks for all the grab bars in bathrooms and walk-showers and taller toilets. Old age is not for the faint of heart.
We have so many friends who are even older than us and doing very well so I’m going forward with that in mind. I’m doing all I can to keep walking and talking.
When I took one of my journalism classes, we were warned not to use “elderly” as that is a judgment and prone to be misused. If you remember elderblogger Ronnie Bennett, that kind of stuff drove her nuts. – sg
I was young, I was middle aged, and now I’m elderly. I’m doing my best to come to terms and make the most of this stage as I did those others.
Well we are the elderly and the term middle ages is surely a misnomer even for those in their fifties. I would view myself as “advanced old age” and if I ever hit 90 “extreme old age”. But yes Delaine those heartbreaking questions always affect me too.
I am dealing with a lot of pain at the moment and was disheartened when my internist dismissed it this morning with “nothing I can do about that.”. Which is true as it’s my arthritic spine acting up but a note of compassion might not have gone amiss.
XO
WWW
I am trying to come to terms with the stages of aging. My arthritic fingers give me grief and my GP says they are textbook arthritic fingers as if that is the whole solution. Having a diagnosis versus having a solution are two different things. There appears some things don’t have a solution but to grin and bear.
I think it would be wise to let your physician know what was a “trigger” for you and why. More than likely, it won’t change the questionnaire, but perhaps it will allow your doc to know you better and to see you as a person and not as answers on a screen or piece of paper.
I have decided to embrace this stage of life, knowing that there are challenges of all kinds ahead. I ask myself frequently, “What is possible now?” and I attempt to adjust my doing to a pace that fits my energy and my interests.
You are smart to adapt and move on rather than rage against this thing called aging. I’m adjusting today, having run errands, grocery shopped, made tacos for lunch, and finished two loads of laundry, I am now just sitting here on the couch reading blogs and commenting! Later I’ll make dinner.
Your provider is very thorough. My doctor’s wellness checklist consists of sending me a notice to have BP checked, blood drawn, and mail in the FOBT thingie.
Medicare requires those questions to be asked once a year in order to have an idea about what’s happening, and to help the older population. That’s the “wellness” visit. They are good screening questions which can encourage the doc to add a social worker or physical therapist to your team. My doc has a dedicated nurse just to do those annual questions, and review when what tests are needed next.
Most hospitals or new patients at doc offices ask those tough questions, such as “do you feel safe from abuse of another person in your life?” At almost 70, I like my son’s term that I’m just “oldish.” A recent nursing CEU I took, called this time of our life as our “elderhood,” just like our “childhood.”
Don’t be afraid. It’s just the way the benefit was set up to make sure every “oldish” person is doing okay during their “elderhood.”
Linda in Kansas
I am eighty-one and really wonder about people a decade or more younger who cannot get out and about, or even “ambulate” that poor woman who died. I know it’s probably somewhere in my future, but when?
I am hopeful you will be like my sister, and my father…My sister still drove and lived alone in her own apartment at 83 years old. She had spent the day Christmas shopping for great grandchildren. Brought all of her purchases home and put in the spare bedroom to be wrapped later. She went to make a cup of coffee, turned on the tv, headed to the bathroom, and between kitchen and bathroom, she collapsed, and from all indications, was dead before she hit the floor. That’s how I want to go out, too. Doing things I love.
My dad was irrigating his beloved cotton crop, finished getting all the water lines shut down, came in, laid down and was gone.
Gosh… I don’t remember ever filling out any sort of questionnaire when I became of age for Medicare. We go to a military hospital so I’m not sure how it all works.
You and DJan are talking about what the Japanese apparently call the Golden Death. My grandmother apparently collapsed suddenly and passed away. Mom went to Japan for the funeral and she said everybody was happy for her and not sad.