Where is the care in healthcare these days?

I recently experienced my first physical therapy evaluation/treatment for numbness in my hand at an area hospital. Where was the care, the concern, the human touch during my evaluation? I didn't experience it.

Now don't get me wrong, the facility was clean and bright, the physical therapists efficient. But that was it. I felt like a number, a body in a space.

The "push" to schedule future weeks of physical therapy was evident. The assumption that because one has a health insurance card all would be covered and just fine was one of arrogance.

Do healthcare workers believe that our health insurance companies just willy-nilly pay for all services that some healthcare worker suggests be done?

The treatment was "hi-tech" with a machine mimicking the massage technique of human hands. As a reflexologist this is not my idea of healing: to be left alone for 15 minutes behind a curtain next to this strange machine that hums and pulsates beside you and on your body.

I did get measured and tested and given exercises to do twice a day. I'm sure the final bill for this 11/2 hours of physical therapy will floor me and cause me more concern than the numbness in my hand.

So, I ask again, where has the care in healthcare gone?

Kate Boyer

Burnham