GVASex
Dear DLD, First, let me start off by wishing everyone a happy, health LGBTI Pride Month! This is always a busy and invigorating time of year, with film festivals, PBS specials, cocktail parties, BBQs, and, of course, pride festivals throughout the country. This year, we can proudly say that Hayward will be joining one of the many Bay Area pride celebrations! How exciting to go out and meet all your neighbors whom you might have suspected of being in the ‘family’ but were too afraid to ask. How heartwarming to see all of the non-profit organizations and businesses serving the diversity even within our own community. Unfortunately, an area where we’re still really lacking is in basic health services that are LGBTI-friendly. As you’ve pointed out, finding a health care provider is usually the first daunting task we face. But there’s an even more basic issues that come up when people start thinking about getting a primary care provider. When I was in college, every student I knew had health insurance. That’s because it was required. If you didn’t have it, they provided it for you, for a cost of course. Now, it seems that a lot of my friends because they have neither health insurance nor health care providers. There are few free or subsidized sources of health care around if you’re young, relatively healthy, and employed in such a way that health insurance isn’t offered. And since we’re still really far away from universal health care, this will be the first hurdle everyone will have to cross. If you have a source of income, insurance may be just a few clicks away. Go down to the local library and check out sites such as https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ or http://www.hiaa.org/consumer/ to begin shopping around and see all of the various options available. In fact, there’s an article up on gayhealth.com right now about picking the right health insurance. Just like car insurance, there are different options depending on your demographic background and particular needs. This is because CEOs of health insurance companies have needs too, so that extra premium you pay to have the doctor or medication of your choice goes towards supporting their crazy salaries. All of these options add up and how much it costs depends on how much you’re willing to sacrifice in terms of choice and quality. Likewise, people who have pre-existing health problems are punished and charged more. For simple individual health insurance, it can be as little as $30 per month. Whereas you might get charged more for car insurance if you choose to drive a souped-up rice rocket, health problems are usually beyond your control. No one chooses to have diabetes or high blood pressure. Of course if you’ve got a sugar mommy or sugar daddy, you can choose to just pay out of pocket for your health care, too, if you don’t want to deal with all the bureaucratic mess of insurance companies. On the other hand, if you’re sick and have no money whatsoever, you may be eligible for Medicare or Medi-Cal. Check out their websites to find more: http://www.medi-cal.ca.gov/ and http://www.medicare.gov/ . Now that you’ve got the insurance, it’s time to find a health care provider. These days, with the skyrocketing cost of health care, insurance companies usually just want you to see the provider groups or providers with whom they’ve contracted. Also, many health care providers will use nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants to do a lot of the work because it costs less for them to do so. So even if you’re signed up to see Dr. XYZ, you may end up being assigned to someone entirely different. There are several places on the web to find an LGBTI-friendly primary care provider. At http://www.glma.org and http://www.gayhealth.com you’ll find databases of providers in your area who serve your specific needs. You can search by area code, city, specialties, and gender. These sites also list the type of payment they take, if the provider listed them when they signed up. A big caveat is that most of the providers listed in these directors in every county of the Bay Area except for San Francisco only provide non-primary care services. It’s a shame, but it’s really hard to find a “regular” doctor out there who identifies as LGBTI or LGBTI-friendly. But if you’re looking for an HIV doctor, a cardiologist, radiation oncologist, or plastic surgeon, you’re more likely to find them on these lists. Most of the medical friends that I know who are LGBTI are not primary care providers. If you’re in the market for a psychotherapist, try Gaylesta, the oldest organization of LGBTQ health care providers in the Bay Area at http://www.gaylesta.org/ . There are non-gay health care providers who are very LGBTI-friendly ones all over the place and sometimes the best way to find them is by word of mouth. Ask your friends who they see and whether they’re happy with their care. You can also go to your local LGBTI community center and see if any providers have posted their business cards up on the bulletin board. Or try the LGBTI yellow pages to see if there’s anyone who slipped by the gaydar screens of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association and gayhealth.com. The University of California at San Francisco also has a wonderful site with links to resources all over the country at http://www.ucsf.edu/cge/lgbtr/links.htm . Still haven’t found a provider? The next option is just to pick someone at random from your phone book or from the list of providers your health insurer gave you. That’s what I did when I came to Hayward, and I found a fabulous straight woman doctor who is very sensitive. So don’t get frustrated—your health is important and worth the effort to have a good provider. And when you do finally see him or her, do yourself, your provider, and everyone else he or she sees a big favor: bring along the list of the “Top 10 Health Concerns of Gay Men / Lesbians” printed in March and April’s FogHorn. Happy Healthy LGBTI Pride! |
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