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A pox! A pox on Fenway Health!
Apr. 20th, 2005 07:46 pmOh my gosh, I was so freaking irritated at my doctor's office today. I want to go back in there and spit fire on them!
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keelamonster, you can ignore this post! HA!)
It doesn't help that one of my perpetual annoyances is that a doctor can never talk to you on the phone and that in order to have a conversation about /anything/, you totally have to drag your butt in there and pay the co-pay. So yeah... I started this Metformin thing in February and was supposed to get back to my doctor in a month or two to discuss whether it's working. Three weeks ago I tried calling the Nurse Case Manager to see if I could go around the whole "coming in" thing, but of course she said no. No big deal, right? So I call to try to make an appointment.
Let me start by saying that I have a pretty inflexible job sometimes, but I /do/ have big blocks of time most Fridays to do things like appointments. So of course my doctor does not work on Fridays.
So I try to schedule this appointment amd the appointment chickie tells me that my doctor's schedule is incredibly booked right now, because she's on vacation and then is totally swamped for when she comes back. So she offers me two ridiculous times that no one but a slacker could do, and then finally gives me an appointment several weeks out, after my medication runs out. No biggee, right? I call the Nurse Case Manager back, tell her the scoop, and they call in a month worth of pills. No problem.
The appointment I /did/ take was for today at 5:00, even though I'm technically in a mandatory staff meeting every Wednesday until 5:00. I felt guilty about turning down the other appointments, even though they were at ridiculous times (like during my playgroup), and decided to try to be remotely accomodating. I cleared it with my boss and left staff meeting at 4:30 to deal with rush hour traffic.
I should have known I was doomed when I got a totally elite parking space right in front of the McDonald's that is directly across from Haviland Street. I dumped my last four quarters into the meter just to be safe, as I had no idea what she really needed me to come in and talk about, and didn't know how long it would take. I go into the building in a great mood celebrating my great parking space and this great weather, and I walk up to the check-in lady who says, "Did you say Dr. N or Dr. F?" I clarify.
And she promptly tells me that she does not know how to tell me this, or what happened, but Dr. N is not in today. And had planned to not be in. And I should not have been given an appointment for today, since she wasn't going to be in. I am totally stunned by this point and sputter, "No one called me." She re-reads me my phone number which is, in fact, 100% correct.
So some asshat scheduled me a doctor's appointment three weeks ago for a day the doctor was out. And then NONE of the appointment reminder people called me. And NONE of the appointment cancellation people called me. And the poor woman at the check-in did not know what to do with me, and was probably just thankful that I wasn't one of those asses who screams at customer service people who have no control over the problem.
Yeah, so supposedly my doctor is getting "a message" stating "my situation." Which means we will probably (if she calls me) spend all day tomorrow playing phone tag until I finally reach her to have her tell me I have to make another appointment. And oh my god, when that happens YOU BET I am going to ask the appointment scheduler 872972852 times, "Are you SURE that Dr. N is going to be IN THAT DAY??!?!"
Dear gods, but I am pissed.
(
keelamonster, you can ignore this post! HA!)It doesn't help that one of my perpetual annoyances is that a doctor can never talk to you on the phone and that in order to have a conversation about /anything/, you totally have to drag your butt in there and pay the co-pay. So yeah... I started this Metformin thing in February and was supposed to get back to my doctor in a month or two to discuss whether it's working. Three weeks ago I tried calling the Nurse Case Manager to see if I could go around the whole "coming in" thing, but of course she said no. No big deal, right? So I call to try to make an appointment.
Let me start by saying that I have a pretty inflexible job sometimes, but I /do/ have big blocks of time most Fridays to do things like appointments. So of course my doctor does not work on Fridays.
So I try to schedule this appointment amd the appointment chickie tells me that my doctor's schedule is incredibly booked right now, because she's on vacation and then is totally swamped for when she comes back. So she offers me two ridiculous times that no one but a slacker could do, and then finally gives me an appointment several weeks out, after my medication runs out. No biggee, right? I call the Nurse Case Manager back, tell her the scoop, and they call in a month worth of pills. No problem.
The appointment I /did/ take was for today at 5:00, even though I'm technically in a mandatory staff meeting every Wednesday until 5:00. I felt guilty about turning down the other appointments, even though they were at ridiculous times (like during my playgroup), and decided to try to be remotely accomodating. I cleared it with my boss and left staff meeting at 4:30 to deal with rush hour traffic.
I should have known I was doomed when I got a totally elite parking space right in front of the McDonald's that is directly across from Haviland Street. I dumped my last four quarters into the meter just to be safe, as I had no idea what she really needed me to come in and talk about, and didn't know how long it would take. I go into the building in a great mood celebrating my great parking space and this great weather, and I walk up to the check-in lady who says, "Did you say Dr. N or Dr. F?" I clarify.
And she promptly tells me that she does not know how to tell me this, or what happened, but Dr. N is not in today. And had planned to not be in. And I should not have been given an appointment for today, since she wasn't going to be in. I am totally stunned by this point and sputter, "No one called me." She re-reads me my phone number which is, in fact, 100% correct.
So some asshat scheduled me a doctor's appointment three weeks ago for a day the doctor was out. And then NONE of the appointment reminder people called me. And NONE of the appointment cancellation people called me. And the poor woman at the check-in did not know what to do with me, and was probably just thankful that I wasn't one of those asses who screams at customer service people who have no control over the problem.
Yeah, so supposedly my doctor is getting "a message" stating "my situation." Which means we will probably (if she calls me) spend all day tomorrow playing phone tag until I finally reach her to have her tell me I have to make another appointment. And oh my god, when that happens YOU BET I am going to ask the appointment scheduler 872972852 times, "Are you SURE that Dr. N is going to be IN THAT DAY??!?!"
Dear gods, but I am pissed.
