PM Battery Check-up

In India, there is a practice that the supplier of Medtronic PM provides, by appointment, free of cost PM Battery check-ups and settings, as and when requested by the PM user.
How about USA/ Canada?
I am currently visiting USA and wish to undergo battery check-up, as a matter of routine.
Any advice will be appreciated.
Thanks

5 Comments

PM Checkups

by J.B. - 2009-08-04 02:08:36

I'll bet if you could check you would find your government health system pays for those checkups. Medtronics is in business to make money for their investors and are not likely to be giving away anything. In the U.S. the fees doctors charge for the checkups is just another way of their receiving a commission for the sale of a pacemaker. Their ain't no free lunches in this world.

Medtronic - Free Pacemaker Check up!

by KaTea - 2009-08-04 02:08:52

Hey there jbig!
(PM Battery Check-up
Posted by jblg on 2009-08-04 00:33)

Sign my son up... Er... Wasn't aware of the service by MedTronic.
Hey! Who forgot about the US!
You write:
"In India, there is a practice that the supplier of Medtronic PM provides, by appointment, free of cost PM Battery check-ups and settings, as and when requested by the PM user."
Yeah, India! It's no accident you all over there in India are taking over the world. I'm an Anglo from way back — all those corrupted UK, Scottish/Irish royal families from before "time began" (Ha!Ha!), a cousin of Lady Diana, Thomas Jefferson, etc; a gr-great x ? grand daughter of William the Conquerer Henry VIII, many Jamestown and Mayflower leaders several times over —AND I fail to see ANY advantage in inheriting these bloodlines other than for the literary value. I mean, the story may be cute, but otherwise there is NOTHING THERE! The #$%^&*'s have stolen it from us all...
As far as I'm aware there is NO practice of the offering by MedTronic as you describe it as available in India — at least not within the USA — as your quote outlines.
It would not surprise me at all if it flat out was NOT available to patients in the US.
It would also not surprise me if it were a ploy by the money-grubbing, politically Machiavellian-oriented physicians in the USA to be perfectly willing to sabatoge the well-being of thier patients by denying patients access to the free service offered by MedTronic.
How? By preventing MedTronic to assist patients by offering this service, because the physician (1) loses the money the physicians may otherwise gain by charging a large fee for the service MedTronic offers for free, and (2) by worrying that MedTronic might come up with different data (perhaps even more accurate!) than the "MDiety" might offer the patient (thus bringing up questions the MDiety does not want to see the light of day), and I could go on and on but I'm quite sure y'all get the point by now.
So MedTronic — where is our — "by appointment, free of cost PM Battery check-ups and settings, as and when requested by the PM user in the United States?"
I am looking forward to this and will not rest until my son — a lifelong citizen of the USA — gets the same quality appointment of this type offered to the good citizens of India.
You can post to me here at "pacemaker.com" so the entire forum can have the benefit of the information.
Thank you jblg for bringing up this subject!
Best to all,
KaTea

Free PM Checkup? Not a Chance!

by KaTea - 2009-08-04 08:08:37

So...jbig, Here’s where we are (I think). The PaceMaker forum concensus is that there are no free PM checkups. You won’t get a free PM checkup in the USA and my son won’t get one even if he goes to India.
In fact as J.B. says, "I'll bet if you could check you would find your [Indian] government health system pays for those checkups." So according to J.B. and others in the forum technically-speaking, not even YOU get a free PM checkup when you are in India.

It seems that even if I paid for a trip to India for my son to get a "free" PM checkup that he would still be out of luck. First of all I’m betting he would have to become a citizen of India to qualify and even then, as J.B. reminds us — the free PM checkup is a cruel illusion. Cabg Pach concurs in saying, “While you may think it free in India, it's likely rolled into the cost up front. Medtronics just like others are in business to make money, and everything has a price.”

J.B. says there aren’t even any free lunches which brings an aging liberal like me to tears. My tongue-in-cheek post regarding the accessibility of "free" MedTronic PM checkups in India has not gone unnoticed, however.

As johnb10000 reminds us: "If you get sick in the United States there is a very common medical procedure called walletdectomy." So patients beware before seeking health care as you don’t even have to be sick to end up with this operation, the “surgical removal of money from your wallet,” and any other fees the system feels you may need to pay.

Cabg Pach reminds us that, "even when you think you're royalty, in the US you still must pay for all medical services." Not to mention that if you share with your doctor that you “think you’re royalty” your doctor is likely to diagnose you as delusional and send you for a real “walletdectomy” from the psychiatrists. (That’s where physicians send those patients when they run out of other options. Their rule #1: never lose a customer!)

Of course the only people who truly believe (and behave as if) they are royalty in the USA are the doctors. And although many of them are clearly delusional no one ever busts them for it. (Just ask a nurse!)

Here kcruz concurs with all of this, reminding us that "nothing in the US is free that I am aware of."

Ya’ mean not even the new health care plan where we all get top medical care for “free”?
Ya’ mean we’ll ALL be getting walletdectomies?

Is the choice something like this? We’ll get to stay with “double jeopardy” if we keep our present Super Upscale Health Care System in the USA (or “SUHCS”, for short) where as we all know we pay a whole lot to get a whole bunch of nothing. Or we will end up with “quadruple jeopardy” if we get the government’s new “free and brought to you by your friendly big-brother government bureaucracy” Super Upside-down Health Care Syndicate (or “SUHCS”, for short) where we will still pay a whole lot to get a whole bunch of nothing — except we’ll get more of the nothing part.

Thanks for the fun guys. Good comments all around…



in short response

by kcruz - 2009-08-04 09:08:52

As of this date nothing in the US is free that I am aware of. Although I know in some states the Device company's provide the service but the physician's office charge for the review of the documents.

$$$$$$

by johnb10000 - 2009-08-04 10:08:38

It will free your wallet. If you get sick in the United States there is a very common medical procedure called walletdectomy which is the surgical removal of money from your wallet.

Since you are not from the United States you may have to pay in advance to get a battery checkup. They may also try to jack up the price to see how much you pay.

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