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Maybe Malpractice?

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OK On November 1st I was playing football and broke my collarbone into 5 pieces, I was sitting at my house for 4 days with it broke because I dont have insurance. So I went to a place and me and my family paid 2k of the 4k that they wanted for the surgery. They werent happy but they did it anyways and set me up on a payment plan. To fix my collarbone they inserted a 6 inch plate screws, and a wired rapped around my bone since it was in so many pieces. Well after the surgery I was scheduled a check up a week later, when I went in for the check-up I saw that there was a bone that was not attached like it was supposed to be, it was running north and south, instead of east to west like the rest of my collarbone was, its clear that it shouldnt be like that because it is a very sharp bone that is in the totally wrong place. The doctor said nothing was out of normal and said it would heal slowly but surely. Then he gave me another check up a week later, at this check up the loose bone had shifted even more north and south to where my collarbone and this loose bone looks like a cross. When I asked him if that bone is going to move back into place he gave me half-ass beat around the bush answer that went like "the whole idea is for your collarbone to be one solid piece." Then he zoomed in on it and zoomed out quickly and still never said there was any problem with it. Isnt he in the wrong, we paid 2k$ so far and we expected for this problem to be fixed, he is acting like it is fine and scheduled appt. for 2 weeks later. I think they dont want to deal with me because I have no insurance but is this legal? We paid to make everything good, and there is still problems which can hurt me in the long run and my bone cant heal with a chunk 2 inches long missing from it, also it can shred anything near it because it is a very sharp point. What should I do, is this an instance of malpractice?
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replied November 20th, 2009
Extremely eHealthy
I would advise that at your next appointment, insist on copies of your records and of your x-rays (you'll probably have to pay $15-$20 per x-ray film sheet). The x-rays should come with some kind of lab report from either the doctor or the technician that looked at the films. Look for those in your chart. If the problem isn't better in two weeks, go get a second opinion from another doctor. Are you having any symptoms, like pain or anything else?

I would also advise you to look into getting insurance, even if it's just what they call "catastrophic" medical insurance that only covers things that a really serious or life-threatening. While it won't cover this specific problem now, having insurance could have saved your family money because they would have only had to pay part of the cost of the surgery. Also, maybe you would have gotten a better doctor ($2K sounds really low for this kind of thing). Just look into it. For someone young without any chronic medical problems, insurance can be surprisingly inexpensive.
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