To ask if my GP gets paid for this?

[namechanger563]

I've received a text from my GP practice asking for my up to date height and weight measurements. Just to keep my record up to date it says.

I'm sure I read a few years ago the GP's get paid for every patient they do a height/weight check with. Is this still the case?

So is this text just a money making exercise or are they actually going to help anyone?

If you know your BMI and don’t object to knowing it what difference does knowing your weight make?

I don't know my bmi, only that it would be in the middle of the healthy range, around 21 I'd guess. I don't need to know it exactly, or my weight. It's not important unless I need an exact weight for a medication.

It's not important unless I need an exact weight for a medication

Which is why it needs to be on your medical notes. 🙄

If I was asked I'd say I don't know but probably about 9st. I know it's not 8 or 10.

I'm not on any medication, if I was going to be then I could be weighed then.

Jesus wept, why would you make a fuss about your GP surgery receiving funding? I despair.

Do you ignore your smear letters too?

It's not them being nosey. It's for your own health and wellbeing. If you have rapid weight gain or loss, they'll be able to compare your previous weights. If you need certain medications, they can prescribe them without you having to go in. If you're massively over or under weight, they can take early action.

I'm not on any medication, if I was going to be then I could be weighed then.

Aye, but I'd bet you'll complain having to wait a week for the medication because they can't prescribe it until they have seen you because they don't have up to date records, and can't get you an appointment sooner because they're wasting time weight 100 other patients in between seeing actual ill people

Now that many consultations are by phone, the doctor doesn't get a visual check to ensure that s/he is giving the right dose of medication. S/he doesn't get to see that someone is looking very thin or overweight, and that would often factor in to the consideration of a diagnosis.
It makes sense to ask people to update the records for this reason alone.

No, I'd just go down to Boots then call back. Or am I supposed to weigh myself three monthly, potentially triggering my ED, just to update records when I haven't been on any medication other than the odd antibiotics in 20 years? They don't actually care though, as my notes say I have a BMI of 16 and I haven't been asked to update them.

"What a waste of an appointment that would be. I can spend all day weighing people, but then you'd wait five times as long for your smear or your children to be vaccinated."

So an NHS GP who has studied (via tax payers money) for 6+years gets paid to send a text asking you to update them via reply text on your height and weight but that same GP partnership cannot fit you in for a face to face appointment because that would take up too much of the GPs time?
What is wrong with the GP partnership practice employing a nurse to take height and weight? (Admittedly that would mean the GP partnership would have to pay a nurse some wages).
What it comes down to is that the GP partnerships want to make more money for themselves.

I don't object to people being responsible for updating their information online etc (via patient access for example) so the GP records are accurate.
I do really object to fully qualified UK GP doctors being paid actual salary for texting patients asking them to do this.

It's not the GP sending the texts. Bless your heart.

Let me guess, those of you with your knickers in a twist about this also object to self-service checkouts because "why should you do the work for free".

The nurses clinics are rammed already without calling people in just to weigh them. I have no appointment now for a month. For anything. colleagues, HCA's included are practically the same. So if you need urgent bloods then what?
And ironically our wages come from meeting QOF targets such as recording height and weight. Less targets met, less money in the practice pot means less nurses, less receptionists, smaller clinics, longer waits.
When we last advertised for a practice nurse we go one application. The general public really have no idea what's brewing.

The first is that in the event of another pandemic situation those with high bmi are offered vaccines first. The same applies for flu jabs.

Why is this, what about low bmi? The QCovid calculator based on my bmi at the start of the pandemic gave me the same risk of hospitalisation and double the risk of dying as a person with a bmi 40+.

I changed pill and had to be weighed beforehand and then weighed again 4 weeks later before they'd give me a year's prescription. I pointed out it was probably medically impossible for me to put on enough weight in that time to go from a BMI of 21, which I've maintained and is shown on my medical records for all my adult life, to a BMI of 25+ but they insisted I come in and be weighed. I think it's funny things have swung so far post-Covid that they now just accept self-reporting when they were so adamant previously that they couldn't possibly do so.

Have you spent much time recently trying to recruit healthcare staff? No? Then come back when you have. Nobody applies.

Funny, isn’t it. We share medical info with random beauticians and personal trainers but get all bizarre when actual trained HCPs ask for this. 🍪

"It's not the GP sending the texts. Bless your heart."

No but the GP gets paid money for those texts don't they? Ridiculous.

If someone has access to a computer or a device they can update the information themselves without some kind of paid-per-text reminder from someone getting money from the government for chasing up the information. Its like chasing people in further education to ask them whether they have done their homework and getting paid per chaser by the government.

Who even introduced this idea that there’s a paid-for-text element here? Complete straw man argument and bonkers.

I’m pretty sure that it wont be an actual GP who phones you up or even inputs the data into your records.

What’s ridiculous is how simplistic and easily manipulated people can be. Someone starts an OP with made up info and the gullible lap it up.

I've not had any messages like this, though maybe that is because as a type 2 diabetic my weight and other essential things are monitored at least once a year at the GP's surgery anyway.

Why are you so worked up about this? You have absolutely no idea how your GP surgery's funding works, but you are determined to be offended. It's bizarre.