Moving by family

I have been debating this for awhile. I choose to stay here in Houston because of the medical facilities. If I moved closer to my sister I would have to travel an hour and 15 minutes to see a specialist. She has a pcp that is good but he sends them to doctors at least an hour away. Its a small town with a hospital that the local doctors will not use. With my health history I need to be near my neurologist and kidney specialist so I will not be moving. They make the trip at least twice a week to see their specialists. I would like to live closer but you have to look out for yourself.
 

Thanks for all the good advise....my family lives in calif.......the other coast. We have a wonderful relationship and the grandkids facetime me on my BD. They have lovely senior apts for rent, although expensive. Anyway I won't bore you with the reasons I don't like there? So for now will let the Lord lead where we finally end up, however, we have the best doctors here and all of our doctors are in a network and speak with each other about our situation, so maybe that is my answer. My daughter is trying to find a female GYN closer to her home without traveling 1+ hours and without any luck......so.
 
I figure you only have one family, but doctors are everywhere! ;)
Sorry, but doctors are not everywhere! My sister lives in a small town and has to go to Shreveport, La, an hour and a half away to see a specialist. There is one pcp in her town that is good and he is not accepting new patients. There is a hospital that is on the verge of closing down as the docs send their patients to the hospitals in Shreveport, La. She and her husband travel out of town at least twice a week to see their specialists. That is the only thing keeping me from moving there. With my health history I need to be near the medical facilities here in Houston.
 
I had to make this decision a few months ago. I do hate giving up my Doctor that I have gone to for 30yrs,but I chose to move near my daughter. I am very happy that my husband and I made that choice. She has helped me getting new Doctors . So far so good.
 
if you have a good doctor i would stay close to them ---good doctors are hard to find---most of them dont want to treat senior citizens
 
I think it depends on age and physical limitations. The older and more limited, the more important being near family is.
 
Based on what you're saying, if I were in your shoes I'd move to be nearer family. Not sure where in CA you're talking about, but perhaps you can split the family/doctor distance difference, meaning you might look at an area that's half an hour from family and half an hour from a big medical center.

There are plenty of excellent doctors in CA. Kaiser (my medical HMO) has a strong presence in CA and is very highly rated by Medicare.

It's understandable to avoid or delay making a decision, or to shift the responsibility to a higher power, but oftentimes that effectively puts another human in the position of making choices for us. And they're not always the choices we'd prefer. I begged my mother to downsize from her huge home and move into a senior apartment near my home while she was still able to do so. She would tell me that she "wasn't there yet." Well, she never did "get there" on her own. She broke a hip and lay on the floor for over 48 hours before we found her. She never came all the way back physically or cognitively from that trauma.

I made Assisted Living choices and managed her care as best I could. The transition would have been far less difficult for her (and emotionally taxing for me) if she'd been willing to make concrete plans and choices ten years earlier.
 
If the choice is between family and the doctor,I'd move in a flash. I thought my doctor who had a thriving practice and an outstanding reputation and was younger than the hubby and I would see us through till the end. This was not the case. He let someone without a medical license in this country practice in his group. He lost his license, narrowly escaped prison and now dabbles in real state.

Of course this isn't the norm but you never know. My family comes first.
 


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