What type of doctor do I need for shoulder/arm pain?
Sunday, September 5th, 2010 at
7:24 am
I am a busy mom and I don’t have a lot of time to spend going from doctor (and also to the hospital to get x-rays because my dr. doesn’t have an x-ray machine) to specialist to find out the cause of my pain. Is there a specialist that deals with chronic shoulder and arm pain that I can go to? I’m trying to avoid spending a lot of time and money on this!
Filed under: Shoulder Blade Pain
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An orthopedic dr.
Have your family Dr. guide you in the right direction. Good Luck!
Go to a chiropractor. They will take x-rays in their office, and sometimes they will do this for free. If you are short on money then tell them and they might be able to put you on a payment plan. My chiro has really helped me out a lot for my shoulder/neck pain. It is also good time-wise because appointments are fast and she doesn’t run late.
there are reasons for following the "chain of command" in the health care system. No, it is not intended to mess up your day or cost you extra money, it isn’t even about you personally. BUT, if you start with your own doctor, often he can assess the issue and treat it himself with nothing more than an examination and asking you some pertinent questions. VERY much cheaper than seeing a specialist, when one may not be necessary. IF your doctor feels it necessary, he would be the one to refer you to the appropriate specialist. It is folks like you, trying to save themselves a few minutes that raise insurance costs for the rest of us. Stop being so incredibly focused on being self serving and use the system as it was designed to be used so costs can be contained and we can all get the affordable care we need.
Guess what? Even if you have insurance that allows you to go to that specialist without a referral, many specialist won’t see you without a referral, so you might as well see your regular doc and let him figure out what he thinks the problem may be. If you are worried that he won’t take you seriously, just tell him you want a referral. It’s actually hard to tell you here whether you need an ortho or neuro because you didn’t specify what kind of pain it is.