Answer: "Hospital" and "Surgery" in American/British English
debirlfan asked us "What are the rules for American versus British usage for 'hospital' and 'surgery'?
It's true that British usage on these common medical terms differs from what's encountered in the United States. We'll take a closer look at how these words work.
( With help from the cast of Bleach )
In the U.S., re women and OB/GYNs, the opposite is often true: their OB/GYN often acts as the GP, and the usual yearly checks (blood pressure and so on) are done when their yearly GYN exams are performed. In a subscription health maintenance organization (HMO) like Kaiser Permanente (one of the larger such options in our part of the country), a man's default doctor will typically be a GP, but a woman's will be an OB/GYN. (And a child's will be a pediatrician.)
Of course, there is no national health service (yet, anyway) in the United States. If you belong to an HMO, the same specialty referral practice you describe is followed: your "primary care physician" must write a referral (and it will usually be to another doctor in the HMO system, unless you have a very exotic problem). If you have "traditional" health insurance (sometimes referred to as "pay as you go"), you can freelance this, if you're willing to pay "out-of-pocket" to at least some extent. If you don't want to go back to your usual doctor for a referral, you can in theory call any doctor you wish. If the doctor is on your insurance plan, you pay a small flat fee (after your yearly "deductible"). Otherwise, you pay out of pocket and file with your plan for a refund. Most plans have a set rate at which they will reimburse you for these "out-of-network" services.
Most specialists here who are not part of HMOs (which have their own health service facilities, rather like small hospitals but without emergency rooms or major surgery suites) rent office space. Sometimes the entire building is devoted to medical services, but often, at least in major urban areas, the doctors will be in a building that also houses other professionals who need office space, including lawyers, real estate title services, and so on.
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Yup, everyone here just goes to a GP, men, women & children as a first point of contact for everything. Often surgeries will also run things like an 'asthma clinic', which are often run by the practice/surgery's nurse. And, apparently it's usually a nurse at the GP's surgery who will do the women's smear tests once every 3 years (unless you're high risk); my sis-outlaw said it's rare that a GP will get involved in doing those but anything that's not routine is likely to go through the GP then referred to a specialist.
It would be wonderful to be able to choose which doctor's services you want to buy. In theory we were supposed to be getting this choice, but it's not happened as far as my experience. Of course, we do have the option of private health insurance, but that's another issue altogether lol.
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