I Love Kaiser

I am now one of those people that would be REALLY upset if the proposed healthcare bill results in my insurance disappearing.  I don't really know enough about this debate to say one way or the other, but I'd like to that my employer (Google) and my insurance carrier (Kaiser Permanente, Northern California) are big enough that the government couldn't take away my insurance.  But I think if I made that comment to Bill he would tell me to, never say never.

But I digress.  This is not meant to be a political post.  This is about the wonderful care I've received at Kaiser during my ACL reconstruction journey.

I'll start with my PT.  She gives great instructions and tells me the reward that will be gained from doing my exercises.  She also tells me what will happen if I do them wrong or not at all!  She also is very patient with me as I ask her a million questions about how the knee operates and I speculate about what I think is going on.  She has gotten to know me as a person and uses what she has learned (my love for soccer, running, being outdoors) as a motivation to work hard at my PT.

On to my surgeon.  I have heard horror stories from friends and family about the arrogance and lake of tact among surgeons; especially orthopedic surgeons.  As a result, I had very low expectations for my conversations with my surgeon.  And I was ok with that.  After all, what I really wanted from him was a perfect surgery.  He did not need to be a great conversationalist in order to meet my objective.

So I was blown away when he spent time answering all my questions and before surgery and was not patronizing.  He also spent extensive time with Bill after surgery explaining how things went.  When I saw my PT on Monday I mentioned this and she told me that for this and a number of other reasons, she was thrilled Dr Masters was my surgeon.  That made me feel really good and really thankful for my HMO.