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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (1043033)	12/13/2017 11:21:59 PM
From: neolib	1 Recommendation Recommended By miraje Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578177

I got Shingles. With 5 minutes attending the Wikipedia School of Medicine I was able to diagnose the condition despite of course never having had it before. Since it was about 2+ days since I'd first noticed the rash before it dawned on me that it might be something unusual, and it was evening so I couldn't get into a clinic until the next morning, I would be at around 3 days, which is up against the time limit they suggest for anti-viral medication being somewhat effective. I could have gone to an ER, but of course that is expensive and wastes money (mine included). So I waited until the next morning and went to the local walk-in clinic where I told three people in sequence (reception, nurse and finally Doc) that the reason I was there was because I had Shingles and wanted a prescription for anti-viral medication. All expressed surprise that I knew what I had. My response to both the Nurse and the Doc, was "Well, look at my back!". So lets break down all the costs: 1) Reception/paper work. Not needed. It does nothing useful other than help them bill my insurance, which is also a wasteful method of payment. 2) Nurse: Not needed. She weighed me (I do that for free at home). She took my temp. I can do that for free at home. She took my blood pressure and pulse. I can do that for free at home. She spent perhaps 5 minutes with me, and after looking at my back she filled out a form stating that I had a rash on my back and thought it was Shingles. Again, no value here at all. 3) Doc comes in. Listens to heart and breathing. Looks in my throat. Looks in my ear. All completely f'ing irrelevant, and again, well within technology to do at home. Asks me why I think I have Shingles. I say Look at my back! Doc says Gee, looks like Shingles. Writes me a prescription. Spent about 5 minutes, half of which was telling me what Shingles is, and what to expect the course to be, all of which is of no value since I'd read it all on Wikipedia already. What was of value was the prescription, because by State law, I can't get the drugs any other way. Its a legal monopoly, but the cost of writing a prescription should be about $0.00 other than that legal monopoly problem. I get billed $170, but the insurance discount wacked that $125 (IIRC) of which they paid $60 and I paid the balance. Now do tell me where you think the cost should be in this. Please do pause to consider that a vision based identification of Shingles, at least at the extent I had it would be drop dead simple, with very high reliability, and further, the prescription I was after would not pose a problem even if I didn't in fact have Shingles. It would just be a wasted prescription. There is no technical reason that I couldn't take some selfies of my torso with a smartphone, and either with an app on it, or more likely with a cloud based AI application get a diagnosis and a prescription. And the cost would be well less than $1, because the compute power would be less than many Google searches I do and they are all free. So where is your cost?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (1043033)	12/14/2017 9:03:12 AM
From: locogringo	1 Recommendation Recommended By Tenchusatsu Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578177

I noticed a rash on my back. Determined that I had shingles within 30 seconds at WikiDiagnostics for idiots. Went to the walk-in clinic the next morning and refused to be seen by aide, nurse and doctor. "Just gimme my prescription that I'll pay for. I can do all your other crap for free at home." They looked at me like I was a obnoxious arrogant moron but did as I said. I died one week later. Mis-diagnosed. My wife is now very rich. Lawyers were excellent. I think they were right in their diagnosis of me being obnoxious and arrogant and a know-it-all moron.