FRANKLIN- For those of you feeling a little under the weather, expect to have a different experience the next time you go to the Franklin Family Practice. The general Doctor’s office has gone under serious changes in preparation for the upcoming Obamacare Health Care program. “You won’t recognize it,” said Family Practice manager, Dr. Tern N. Coff.
The changes are a result of cost cutting and increasing amounts of dissatisfaction among patients at the facility. “I been goin’ there for years and they ain’t never cured a damn thing,” said patient Wilma Hutchins. “Always feelin’ me up, and throwing a bunch of drugs at me, ‘cause they don’t know what it is I got. Then they make me keep coming back for more follow-ups, and make me have to pay all them damn co-pays. I’ve got medicine to treat the side effects of my first medicine now, and I’ve still got the same illness. What am I paying for here?”
For starters, all the doctors in Family Practice have been repurposed to other areas within the hospital, and have been replaced by a kiosk computer terminal. Patients seeking treatment will enter their symptoms into the computer’s database, and an educated guess will be made by the kiosk. “It’s sorta like you would diagnose yourself on WebMD,” said Tern N. Coff. “We did some intensive research, and discovered that patients guessing what they had using Google or WebMD actually had just as high of a success rate of guessing what the hell it actually was as our doctors did, so we’ve gone with the high tech.”
The database is also crammed full of important clichés and anecdotes, including but not limited to: “You need to get more exercise, lay off the carbs, you shouldn’t be drinking 12 alcoholic beverages in a day, drink more water, stop sleeping with everything with a pulse,” and everyone’s favorite “it’s just part of getting older.”
After receiving their diagnosis and a berating from a machine, the kiosk will then dispense a Z-Pack, as that’s the only thing that “cures” anything anymore, and is the go-to for any illness. “Not to give away all our trade secrets,” said Coff, “but the Z-Pack is actually a placebo. We always just give it a timetable to work that 90% of illnesses would have run their natural course anyway and been killed off by the body.” For those with children, there’s no need to fret, as the kiosk is also stocked with the bubble gum flavored cure-all, penicillin.
For a $25 fee, patients can also gain a referral to see a Real Live Doctor who actually knows what they are doing in a specific field. Initial reports also indicate that the machine can be bribed, and that if enough money is crammed into its deposit tray, it will write a prescription for marijuana, oxycotin, adderall, and various other illicit drugs. For those patients still looking for a good thorough inspection, Dr. Coppen A. Feel has graciously volunteered his Cooter Scooter every Tuesday and Thursday for a good old fashioned feel-up, but a stringent selection process is needed before seeing the good Doctor.
When told of the changes, Wilma Hutchins seemed intrigued. “You mean to tell me, I can walk right up, be misdiagnosed on the spot, get my pills, and be on my way for $25? Sign me up, can’t be any worse!”
Coff expects the kiosk to be fully installed by the end of June.