Millennials and health care are a hot couple nowadays. So much so that the president of the United States was willing to use a selfie stick and grant an interview to Zach Galifianakis, a man most known for "The Hangover" franchise, in order to get us to sign up for it.
Hold off for a second on your "thanks, Obama" comments. I'm not about to debate the merits of the Affordable Care Act here. My biggest health care concern is that I am effectively clueless as to how it works. And I'm not just talking confusing insurance terms like PPO and deductibles (because I'm not sure many adults even truly know what those are).
I mean that the simple task of finding a doctor leaves me lost.
It sounds stupid, but it's just another task on the list of Obvious Adult Responsibilities that somehow still take 20-somethings by surprise. And after having had doctors lined up for me since I was just a blurry ultrasound image (which couldn't even be shared on Facebook back then!), I feel woefully unprepared.
It's not that I didn't see it coming. It was pretty clear that I couldn't schedule dentist appointments and eye checkups over winter break forever — especially when I also came to terms with the fact that winter breaks wouldn't always exist. But every 20-something knows that the easiest way to deal with looming responsibilities is to ignore them until they are staring you in the face.
If you still live close to where you grew up, lucky you. Your family doctor, dentist, psychiatrist, dermatologist and every other medical professional you didn't even know you needed are likely still at your disposal. But if, like me, you've moved to a new city, it's time to literally start from scratch.
This is the point where I should ideally insert some sage advice or at least basic tips. Sorry, that's not going to happen. Because even after nearly two years of post-grad "adult" life, the best I've got is Googling "[Fill in type of doctor here] in Baltimore."
But then what? What if the doctors who come up first just have someone in their office who's really good at SEO?
Luckily, the Baltimore area seems flush with premier medical institutions. And if you don't like your first choice for whatever reason, you could always go to someone new.
Another plus: As with so many other daunting adult responsibilities, tons of other 20-somethings are going through the same struggles. Grab a friend and attack the search together; being independent is a lot easier when you can still be slightly co-dependent. My roommate and I found a dentist together, and it made the process a lot less stressful.
It also helps that we can compare experiences and flesh out whether we made an OK choice. Because the stress doesn't end once you finally find your way to a waiting room. Now there are actual health matters to worry about, and my mom isn't there to interrogate the doctor with endless questions that I'm realizing were probably important, and in the time it takes me to miss my mom I've missed everything the doctor said about the rare disease I probably have.
Fortunately, once my anxiety subsides, the rare disease tends to disappear with it, and I haven't actually encountered any real health scares — unless you count the $800 bill my dentist sent before running my insurance. I'm gradually accumulating the doctors I need, and it's slowly getting less stressful.
So I guess I do have a teensy bit of advice for my health care-clueless peers: Just like all of the other new experiences we encounter, all we can do is learn as we go.
Ellen Fishel's column appears regularly in b.
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