Warning: Semi rant and venting

I recently got my letter for HRT and tried to make an appointment with one of the three endos suggested to me by my therapist but when I talked to them today they said they need a referral from my primary care doctor before I can make an appointment. The issue is my primary care is often booked for a month in a half in advance and has no experience in trans related issues. From what I can gather my insurance will only allow me to see a specialist if my primary writes the referral so my therapist who my primary referred me to is unable to write a referral letter that my insurance will accept. When I called they told me they sent a message to my primary requesting a referral so I'm not sure how someone who hasn't had much to do with my transition is supposed to write a referral for something he has limited information on. I kinda thought once I got this letter it would be simple to get on hormones but my insurance is apparently really horrible. Everyone I talk to talks about how horribly strict it is and I can't even get them to give me policy info. It's state medical which outsources to a private company.


Not sure if I should call back tomorrow or show up in person to the clinic. I don't want to pester them but I'm worried that they'll just toss me aside or forget about me.

Its been said before but all the information for you to become an expert on hormones and to take to any doctor to become an expert is rite here on the internet. It is written by doctor that are experts on the topic.

As a matter of fact you will discover that there is a pretty standard dosage for both meds that most women take. You will also learn that there are blood tests that are no different than what other people get. Any doctor understands what the results of the blood tests indicate.

The point is this is not rocket science and any doctor can assist you in the process if you are willing to spend a bit of time doing your homework.

Katie

Your primary would likely write the referral because of not being in on trans issues.

If you live anywhere. that a drive to chicago is possiable,  go to the howard brown health clinic, Illinos is a informed concent state. You dont need to the therpist letter and they do sliding scale.

Can you get your primary on the phone? Email/fax them a copy of the letter you got? You might be able to get stuff faster from that. Try and push through the receptionists and talk directly to your primary, if you can.

My primary care doctor said he'd give the OK as long as my more specialized doctors do as well, yours might too.

Some insurances make you see your primary before seeing any sort of specialist, so there is little way around it if you have that sort of policy.  Does your primary have a physician's assistant or a nurse practitioner?  If the practice is that busy in general, I'd imagine they have someone to help the doctors workload there that could write you a referral.  I'd call your doctors office and tell them the situation.  They may right the referal without you needing an appointment.  Believe me, if they can avoid booking a patient in one of those busy practices, they will.  Just call your primary and find out. 

Many doctors will write a referral without an office visit, if they take your word for it that you need a specialist.  Basically, you're asking them to punt to an expert so they don't have to deal with something they know nothing about, and they're frequently happy to do so. Referrals are something the doctor's offices will be VERY familiar with, and it's no trouble for them to produce one.

(I have gotten referrals for MRIs, skin mole checks, and eye exams without needing to see the GP; I call and say "I've got X issue and want to go see Y specialist," and the doctor produces a standard referral form and faxes it over to the specialist.)

I went into the clinic to drop off my letter today and from what I understand they're going to get back to me in a few days. I don't like dealing with doctors much because of some bad experiences I've had so I try to avoid them as best as I can.  I'm not looking forward to meeting a new doctor but getting my hormones will be worth it.

For me, there was no doctor within a reasonable distance who knew about HRT. What ended up happening is a social worker called around for me and found a primary care doctor much closer to me who was willing to learn the HRT trade so to speak. That doctor ended up contacting another doctor who has experience in HRT. Maybe you can ask a social worker or someone within your insurance who can do some research for you to see if a doctor might be willing to learn but doesn't currently know.