She literally called me at the time of the appointment to tell me she can't see me. She was so apologetic, but was like "I absolutely can treat you, but I'm not allowed by your insurance". Fuck this country.
Update: I went to urgent care. Before leaving home, I called to be sure they would accept my insurance (Aetna). They said yes.. After arriving for my appointment, they told me they do not accept my insurance. I will simply leave without paying.
Final Update: I can understand that that differences in physical biology demand different attention. That's not what I'm complaining about. It's the way it's set up. I was told that at my appointment. Why not just refer me to a specialist? The website could've even just referred me to urgent care (yes, my insurance requires a primary care physician's referral for urgent care, according to the urgent care facility). But, no, their goal is to obfuscate and irritate until the patient gives you and pays out-of-pocket.
I was able to receive care at a cost I could not afford. I won't discuss what I had to do to "find" the money to pay for care and prescriptions. That being said, the condition I was diagnosed with was more serious than a simple infection, and I'm glad that I saw a doctor. I need further treatment and just hope I can get insurance to cover any of it.
If you're an American reading this, please consider ways to get involved in organizing in support of Medicare For All in your community. Here is one resource I have found. We don't need to live like this. We deserve better. Stay safe and healthy, friends.
The extreme profit oriented business culture of the US combined with the human nature of bandwagons make these sort of disgusting practices possible.
Corporations are justified, by default, in anything they can do to increase profit, and will do so until there's enough public backlash to negate the amount of profit that practice makes.
The public backlash is tied to the social momentum the idea has. Because profitability is the default idea to be promoted, you can't say something like "don't do this obviously profitable thing because it's bad for people" unless there's enough people around you who'll get on the bandwagon. If suddenly some influential person or a critical number of schmucks say the opposite, then everyone is defending the corporation's, not only the right, but the duty to be profitable.
It's an unpleasant way to live, really, but people are creatures of habit and won't easily go against the culture they grow up in.
Unfortunately, insurance is insulated from public backlash because it’s not something that is easy to shop around for. Many people get insurance though work and have limited options to start with and a specific time window for make plan changes. When all options equally suck there isn’t an affordable place to switch your business too.
This sort of change would need to be legislated, but public opinion has very little impact on public policy.
Healthcare is broken in the US and no one with any real power to make change will do anything about it because it’s far too profitable the way it is now.