It takes 3 - 4 months to get in to see this doctor and then it takes a serious road trip to visit. That doesn't include the time spent seeing the doctor for a procedure or tests. During the winter the snow and ice storms can really screw the appointments up as well.

All the road hassle is for the simple reason that the nearest hospital stopped taking my insurance right about the time we moved to this state due to contract issues with my insurance company.  Which simply means the insurance company was either not paying the hospital in a timely fashion - or the insurance company thought the hospital was charging way too much - or both.

Before we moved, the insurance company told me that the hospitals in this area were state of the art and ranked with in the top ten in the country for liver treatment and transplants.  Due to the fact they are in the midwest means the odds of actually getting a liver when and if I need one are significantly higher because people are more willing to donate organs here than on the east or west coast.  My insurance company told me all these facts after I said we were moving out of Jersey. 

What we could not have known was that by the time we moved and got an appontment to see the top ranked hepatologist in the country (which took a year), the hospital would stop accepting my health insurance due to contract disputes.  So we had to go with the next closest hospital, which is a 6 hour round trip. But, at least this hospital has a much more efficient and realistic program that treats you like a patient, and not a mortgage payment.

So far.........