A pox! A pox on Fenway Health!

[judecorp]

Oh 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!

(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.

Comments

[keelamonster.livejournal.com]

You SHOULD be angry. That's rude and inconsiderate.
At least when I'm out of the office, we make sure that there are no appointments for that day, or we have someone to cover for me. mostly we have one of the PAs come in, and he covers for me so everyone gets seen.

That just sucks.
I'd write them a scathing letter.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Right. I mean, people screw up. I screw up. It happens. But they totally had two weeks to catch their mistake and call me. Even if they'd called me at 4:00, I would have been grateful. It would have saved me a trip uptown through rush hour.

I don't know to whom I would address such a letter.

[keelamonster.livejournal.com]

I would find out who the owner is (usually it's one or more of the physicians) or if they have an office manager. If it's a big group, then there's usually an office manager who's in charge and takes care of the day to day stuff (we have one at our office, and it's just little old me here).

Just call up and ask: "who owns this practice and is there an office manager of some sort that I can speak to?"

They should direct you to someone in charge. It's just like any other service: keep asking for a manager or a boss until you get one.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

It's a big community health center... I think it will be tough to track down an owner but I might be able to grab an office manager.

But not until Monday at the earliest. Apparently they had a fire in the building sometime after the nurse case manager left me a voicemail, and the sprinklers went off and now everything's closed for the weekend until things "dry out."

[estrange.livejournal.com]

That sucks. I'm sorry. :( I had that happen to me before too for a doctor's appointment I made for Devin. Luckily the doctor was there and they squeezed us in though.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wouldn't have minded being squeezed in to see someone else... but no one knows what my doctor wants to talk to me about, I guess.

[thatpatti.livejournal.com]

gah! i hate dealing with doctor's offices (except brad's, where he personally calls me back to set up fisher's appointments) :).

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Brad can't be my doctor, he's too far away! That's why keelamonster is my doctor, she hooks me up via the internet!

[vorpalbla.livejournal.com]

"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."

FWIW, at most medical practices (including my CMHC if you count it), you can get a nurse to talk to you on the phone if you are an established patient. What they do at CCI is, you can talk to the nurse, and if she can't answer the question she passes it on the the doc and you get a call back.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been able to get nurses on the phone here, too. But when I got the nurse on the phone this time, she said, "You have to come in and see the doctor."

Yuck.

[folkyboy.livejournal.com]

omg that's fucking HORRIBLE! i don't know why they couldn't have gotten another doctor to see you. especially since it was such a standard appointment...

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I imagine that they couldn't just set me up with another doctor for a number of reasons. First, it was an evening appointment and there probably aren't as many doctors around. Second, it was last minute and they were probably all booked. And lastly (and probably the biggest), no one really knows what my doctor wants to talk to me about.

Grrrrr.

[mostlyhere.livejournal.com]

Yep. Reason #5748561793 I found a new doctor.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Can I ask where you moved to? (Feel free to say no.)

[mostlyhere.livejournal.com]

I moved to Dr. Elizabeth Ross at Tufts-New England. She is fantastic. If you want her contact info drop me a line.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Okay, I'll think about it. I'm just so lazy and unmotivated to get yet another doctor.

[fifteenthirty.livejournal.com]

First, hi. :) Found and added you through a post on my own friends list, who asked for people to rec people for him to add, and I added you, too. No need to reciprocate, I just thought you sounded interesting.

Second, I'm also on metformin (me, for PCOS)... did they talk to you about kidney and liver function when you went on it? If you've just started, they most likely want to check and make sure you're still okay with them.

*I am not a doctor, and I certainly don't play one on TV. But that's what my first visit after going on it was for.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Hi. I noticed that you added me yesterday and also noticed you listed PCOS as an interest. Thanks for your feedback! (Actually, my doctor never did mention kidney or liver function issues to me. That's not really surprising, though, because when we were discussing my taking it I expressed concerns about other people's experiences with gastrointestinal problems and she had never heard of that side effect. WTF??!??!!) Apparently my doctor's office had a fire today and they're closed until at least Monday or some crap.

I, too, take Metformin for PCOS. Though I haven't had my period in a million years, I was never diagnosed because I don't have cysts. Only recently did I find a doctor who wanted to check out the insulin resistance thing.

Now if I could just stop eating cookies! :)

[fifteenthirty.livejournal.com]

Oh, crap, you need a new doctor. My first doctor told me I didn't have PCOS because after an unnecessary (according to my next doctor) ultrasound, he found only tiny cysts. He did tell me I had Tpye II diabetes, though.

My next doctor, an endocrinologist, took one look at the extra hair on my face (sideburns and under my chin), asked about my periods, and said yep, you got it. She also changed my diabetes diagnosis to insulin resistant after my daily blood sugar tests were never once out of bounds.

Before they allowed me to go on Metformin, though, they tested my kidney and liver function, and they test it every year now. It can cause problems.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I know I had a bunch of blood tests at my physical before I started all of this stuff, and I know there was at least a kidney function test in there... so I'm guessing I'm all set.

I would like to have this damned follow-up appointment sometime in this lifetime, though. This dose is totally not working on the period front but I'm still sitting here taking it three months later because I can't get into the doctor's office.

Grrr. Why did they tell you that you have Type II Diabetes?

[fifteenthirty.livejournal.com]

They did a fasting glucose test and it had higher levels. But mostly, I figure it's because that doctor is a moron.

He also (in the same appointment, because I sure as hell didn't go back to him) made me pass out from pain when he gave me a rectal exam with no warning and no lube.

(I had told him he might as well do my yearly pelvic while I was there, so it's not like I didn't know it was eventually coming, but still... no warning, no lube = ow. so ow.

[rizzo41.livejournal.com]

Must be something about Boston doctor's offices. The throat doctor my mom goes to did that to her, too. Luckily I had talked her into calling them to ask questions about her procedure and she learned she'd been scheduled for a day the doctor doesn't work. It would have been really bad had she driven the 5 hours there for nuthin'. I've decided that in general doctors are asshats these days. Mine sure is!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Doctors suck. Seriously. They think they are the only ones who matter sometimes. HELLO!