Do most parents cease all involvement in their "child's" medical care the day he / she turns 18?
I'm slightly bewildered by a question someone posed to me in her answer to a question I asked here a while ago. She asked me why my parents had any involvement in my medical care since I'm now an adult. I turned 18 a few months ago, and am in remission for a serious health condition. Now that I'm in college and in remission, they aren't nearly as involved as they were when I was diagnosed at fifteen. They didn't cease all involvement the day I turned 18, though. My mom is a physician, so she had me sign a medical release form so my doctors could share my file with her. I didn't really object to this since she understands medical matters more than I do and can explain something at greater length than my doctor if necessary. I was hospitalized for severe pneumonia and they were both there the whole time. We live in the US now (we're British) and it's not like in the UK where you can get medical care of your own and you don't pay an outrageous sum for a top university. My parents pay for all medical care (which is extremely expensive even with insurance), student health care, and private health insurance (since my pre-existing condition makes it hard to get a policy in my own name). The previous question was about the way my dad had "manhandled" me to get me into the hospital when I refused to go on my out of a panic attack due to a needle phobia. Now I've learned coping mechanisms for my phobia so I don't freak out like that anyway. They have still made threats, like taking away my car if don't go to a medical appointment, but that's it. I hopefully won't have a recurrence, but if I did I'd have to withdraw from school and return home until I reached remission again, and I'm positive they would still do things like drive me to appointments and get my prescriptions and all of that.
Anyway, Cathrl69 had made it seem like it was weird that my parents had *any* involvement in my medical care, which baffled me. Do most other parents stop all involvement the day their "child" turns 18 and is therefore a legal adult?
@ the user named . - I am hopeful you're health is better. I am fortunate that my parents are fairly balanced in their approach now. Actually, even when I was fifteen they realized that there were things that should be confidential between me and my doctor. They were rarely ever present in the room during exams, so I had privacy then and spoke freely with my doctor. My mom knows I take birth control (not just for the intended purposes) and just gave me some information about it that I wasn't aware of, then let the decision about taking it be mine. She's a neurologist so she had reasons for me not using marijuana to ease chemo symptoms since it has more of a neurological effect on younger people. I ended up just resorting to acupuncture, which was totally ironic considering my needle phobia, but it worked. I highly recommend it.
The threats for revoking privileges has to do with missing necessary medical appointments because I wanted to do something else, or because I was