I'm soooo tired of doctors who rip people off.

I had an appointment yesterday with an opthalmologist. When I first moved
here in 2008 I went to this practice to get new glasses. That was almost 5
years ago. That doctor sold his practice and moved away. For whatever
reason, about 1.5 years ago I went a different practice. This guy sold me
new glasses and told me I'd need cataract surgery within 5 years. Really?
No one ever mentioned that before.

A couple of days ago I tripped on a throw rug and fell face-first into the
coffee table (ouch!) bending my eyeglass frames all out of whack. I've
managed to bend them back to "wearable" but it's definitely time for new
frames. This time I went to the guy who took over that first practice.
They still had my medical records from 2008.

Guess what? My prescription hasn't changed! So what the heck was that
other doctor doing, charging me for new glasses when I didn't need them?!
Furthermore, he told me I'd need to have cataract surgery within 5 years.

The doctor I saw yesterday said I *might* need cataract surgery by the time
I'm 65 (I'll be 52 in July)... that's certainly not "within 5 years" like
this other quack told me. He also said if I do have to have cataract
surgery, it's basically lasic so I wouldn't even need to wear glasses after
that. This guy wasn't trying to push me into surgery. Hell, he wouldn't
have even pushed me into new glasses if I hadn't nearly broken the existing
frames when I fell.

How do doctors get away with stuff like this? Something similiar happened
with the gastric surgeon who treated me when I was hospitalized for
diverticulitis in 2008. In my outpatient follow-up visits he kept pushing
and pushing for me to have surgery to remove half of my colon. Oh, his
predictions were dire! "If you don't have this surgery you'll be wearing a
colostomy bag within 3 years." It's funny how quickly he changed his tune
when I said, "You DO realize I don't have insurance, right?" Oh! Suddenly
it was just modify your diet... handed me some pamphlets and I was outta
there. Obviously, since there wasn't an insurance company to bilk it made a
big difference to how he treated me. And I never heard from him again

So, next week I'll have new glasses, only because I bent the frames all to
hell. And I don't have cataracts. And, five years later, I'm not walking
around with a colostomy bag. I'm doing just fine, thank you very much.

I'm wondering if I should file complaints about these two with the AMA.

Jill