Until you are fluent or at least comfortable in Portuguese, before you go to any appointment make a list of questions and translate them to Portuguese. Have your translator app in hand.
Here's a trick. Regardless of how stupid it feels at first, ask the same question over and over until you feel you have a satisfactory answer.
Until you are fluent or at least comfortable in Portuguese, before you go to any appointment make a list of questions and translate them to Portuguese. Have your translator app in hand.
Here's a trick. Regardless of how stupid it feels at first, ask the same question over and over until you feel you have a satisfactory answer.
Some docs will give you personal contact info, others will not. My hematologist gave me the hospital general number while admitting not even she could get anywhere with it. My surgeon gave me both his email address and his cell phone number.
I would recommend that people who can afford private insurance use that instead of the public system which is already severely strained. Private here is pennies on the dollar compared to US health care. I do have a public doctor here who suggested I check in once a year to keep my public file up to date just in case. I have been negligent with that.
Physician response and our perception of the competence of the doc/nurse/care provider changes with the individual. My wife's doc came out to tell me her colonoscopy results. Mine did not. She was clear and mine found a lesion that required surgery.
In the Old Country, I saw the doc, and that was it. Their front desk was a firewall between me and them.
We have private insurance and the vast majority of our interactions with health care here have been through either Cuf or Luz. It does seem to vary by individual how much they inform and allow contact. Thanks for the tips. I find that asking the same question multiple times helps in many scenarios. Just today with MEO, for example. Or at least I try to repeat what I heard to verify that I heard what I thought I heard. Which I don't always. Definitely not a walk in the park.
Until you are fluent or at least comfortable in Portuguese, before you go to any appointment make a list of questions and translate them to Portuguese. Have your translator app in hand.
Here's a trick. Regardless of how stupid it feels at first, ask the same question over and over until you feel you have a satisfactory answer.
Some docs will give you personal contact info, others will not. My hematologist gave me the hospital general number while admitting not even she could get anywhere with it. My surgeon gave me both his email address and his cell phone number.
I would recommend that people who can afford private insurance use that instead of the public system which is already severely strained. Private here is pennies on the dollar compared to US health care. I do have a public doctor here who suggested I check in once a year to keep my public file up to date just in case. I have been negligent with that.
Physician response and our perception of the competence of the doc/nurse/care provider changes with the individual. My wife's doc came out to tell me her colonoscopy results. Mine did not. She was clear and mine found a lesion that required surgery.
In the Old Country, I saw the doc, and that was it. Their front desk was a firewall between me and them.
Health care here is no walk in the park.
Boa sorte
We have private insurance and the vast majority of our interactions with health care here have been through either Cuf or Luz. It does seem to vary by individual how much they inform and allow contact. Thanks for the tips. I find that asking the same question multiple times helps in many scenarios. Just today with MEO, for example. Or at least I try to repeat what I heard to verify that I heard what I thought I heard. Which I don't always. Definitely not a walk in the park.
Thanks for the comments!
I love going in with a list in both languages. Most docs seems to appreciate it as well.