Is this healthcare change a significant loss?

Wait it will only change more in the next couple of years. And that is not for the better.

And don’t forget you live in the best country on earth, or so your told.
And yes it is a big change and not for the better, just the first step of Government cut backs on the poor and working class.

It sounds like the doctor’s office is making an effort to save you money. The ability to analyze the sample in house makes for faster results as well as reduced expense. There may well be advances in blood analysis that render a urine test redundant in most circumstances.

You have to remember that for the longest time, doctors (and insurance agencies) were ordering extra tests to avoid malpractice lawsuits and to make money. There has been a push for the past year or so to do away with unnecessary tests. Unless there is something indicated by a blood test, urinalysis is extraneous. The fact that unnecessary tests were ordered for so long makes it seem odd to not see them now. If you have questions, ask your doctor. Ask him what the urinalysis test was showing and why it is not needed now.

Doctor’s assistant: “No. We don’t order urine studies any more because the insurance doesn’t pay for it.”

So I assume insurance used to pay for it. I am also going to assume you pay the same or more for less healthcare.

Yes. Until such time that the whole thing would’ve gone to hell anyway.

That’s interesting. I used to refuse a urine test sometimes at my GYN annual, because it always seemed pointless to me, and I didn’t want to pay for it. I never followed up to see if there actually was a price reduction.

What are they looking for in that urine test? Sugar? Bacteria? What?

Such a racket our healthcare system.

Maybe studies showed the urine test is ineffective during an annual exam, and so they stopped covering it. Meaning, maybe it only caught something unknown 1% of the time, or something like that.

This reminds me of a doctor a couple of friends of mine used in TN. A GP. During annual exams he took a chest X-ray. I don’t know any other doctor who does that. I refused it.

I’m not sure if it’s that important. You can pay extra if it bothers you and get it done!

To an extent, the insurance company’s interest is aligned with those of the patient. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The insurance company does not think that there is much likelihood of finding anything serious using a urine test that could not be found otherwise. I am in no position to determine if they are correct in their assessment.