I couldn’t tell how old the woman behind the counter was, at all. In retrospect, I’m guessing mid-to-late thirties. Her face was mostly unlined, and her hairline still looked mostly intact. She had glasses propped just in front of a messy bun and her eyes appeared to be hazel like mine. I got so lost memorizing the details of her face that I neglected to answer her question. Or I was absorbing everything about her person to avoid the question altogether.
For context, I was already a bit tired of the interaction, and we had barely begun. I was tired from the work week and anxious because of my impending travel and this doctor’s office had recently been gobbled up by one of the hospital conglomerates. I had to come down to the office to make an appointment, because calling for an appointment is now a thing of the easy and taken-for-granted past. So yeah, I was stretched pretty thin by the point I was staring down the woman who manned the front desk at my now hijacked PCP’s office.
She gazed expectantly at me.
I’m sorry, I had said.
I asked you your marital status, because you left it blank on the forms, she replied. Her voice was coated in annoyance and frustration.
Her attitude pissed me off. Sure, the change in office had to be tiresome for the staff as well, but is she fucking kidding me? I deal with annoyed people all the damn time and I keep my shit together. Plus, I had been polite thus far. She hadn’t even seen what I was feeling on the inside. Not even a little.
Yeah, I said, I heard you.
I’m not sure I had, or perhaps I had, and my brain instantly exploded and the resulting space-out is what she was witnessing. Doesn’t matter, not really.
I don’t understand why my marital status is relevant to my medical care or treatment, I said.
Yeah, she replied, I get it, but I don’t think I can bypass the screen.
This enraged me. I felt a swirling tundra of emotions in my gut. Self-righteousness, sadness, embarrassment, and more. Why the FUCK did my doctor need to know if I’m single, married or divorced? Would that change the treatment I received? Would it change their analysis? Are there particular ailments that are attributed to those who have decided to not settle down?
I didn’t understand. I don’t understand.
I relented and told her that I was single, but it was begrudgingly. I know what you are thinking. It’s because I’m single that I had such an issue with the exchange. There’s nothing I can say to assure you that is not the case, except to say that is not the case. I can promise you that I would feel the same no matter my status. I am not in any way ashamed of my status. I don’t feel like I need to explain myself when it comes to my singlehood, unless prompted to do so.
Anyway, when I got home, I looked up why the fuck my doctor was so insistent on knowing who I’m sharing my free time with, and the answer was annoying. Well, let me first share that I’m not the only human who has been pissed off with this specific interrogation. There were pages and pages on Google dedicated to folks who posed the same question to the interweb.
The most common answer is that the reason for the question is legal and financial. They want to know who might be responsible for the bill if something happens and also, who would have to make decisions is something were to happen. I will tell you that I didn’t feel comforted by this response. Instead, I felt appalled that given all the other shit we are so obsessed with these days, we haven’t found a better way to get to the bottom of these issues WITHOUT knowing someone’s marital status.
Just so you know, typically unpaid bills are covered by one’s estate when they pass (and they are single). Also, decisions are rendered by those who have been designated as proxies or in certain cases (where such a designation has not occurred), by default surrogates (i.e. family, friends) or in the worst-case scenario, physicians, committees, and/or guardians.
I know, this all probably sounds pretty morbid, and you’d like me to stop talking about it. I understand. I do. But my point is that there are paradigms in place to address these scenarios. I’m not sure the note regarding someone’s martial status makes life any easier for anyone, but it does create discomfort amongst patients for no damn reason.
You might be wondering why I’m so peeved about this if I’m comfortable with my status. I don’t think that’s an unfair question or pondering, at all. I had to ask myself the same question. I think it’s because we are still falling hard on old social stratifications in our society. We are still clinging to this really antiquated way of approaching how people live in the world (and honestly, how they choose to die). We wonder why our government is rolling back women’s rights and punishing members of the LGBTQ+ community, and I’ll contend that we shouldn’t, wonder. It’s pretty fucking clear that we are still subscribing to an old concept where it matters, and that infrastructure tends to infect everything else.
When the woman at the front desk of my doctor’s office told me that she couldn’t move onto the next screen without adding that information, I relented and gave her that information. You know what I wanted to do? I wanted to tell her to figure out a way to bypass it. I wanted her to escalate the issue and find a way to deal with it, but then also, I didn’t want to be difficult. I didn’t want to create a problem. I didn’t want to make noise.
You see where I’m going with this, right?
They told me that they need to know if I have a husband (or wife) to make decisions for me, and in turn, I was a good girl.
That sounds like progress, doesn’t it?
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