Medical Merry-go-round
For the past year (or more) Ann has been afflicted with a lot of heavy duty back pain which has lead us, in turn, to some equally heavy duty experience with the marvelous medical merry-go-round. We'd been warned by friends who had gotten caught up in it, and have had occasional glimpses of it ourselves, but it has to be experienced to be truly appreciated.
It's a merry-go-round that moves with excruciating deliberateness. Nothing, it seems, happens the next day, or even the next week. After you've seen a doc his or her notes have to be transcribed and then reviewed and then faxed to the primary doc who will eventually read them and you will hear from an appointment secretary who will leave a messsage on your answering machine, a process which consumes two weeks.
But the appointment secretary can't leave a message with content for anyone but you (thanks, HIPPAA) so you have to return that call and experience the true joys of voice mail. And since you qualify as neither a "true medical emergency" (as opposed, presumably, to a false medical emergency) nor a "physician's office calling", you are relegated to "push 3", whereupon you are told that the apppointment secretary is busy helping other patients or (obviously) away from her phone so please leave your name, date of birth, telephone number, mother's maiden name, and your call will be returned in the order in which it was received. You are expected, of course, to stay home by your phone until they call back or Halley's Comet returns, whichever happens first.
Eventually, though, you will get an appointment to see the doc, but don't take that apppointed time too seriously. They don't. Just take a good book (unless you enjoy old copies of well thumbed magazines), enjoy this merry-go-round's Muzak, and wait. Then, after your business with the doctor is finished you'll be rewarded and encouraged by the parting comment, "If you have any problems, be sure to give me a call." What a sense of humor!
posted by Bob/Dad/Granpa/etc. at 5:11 PM
2 Comments:
The problem can be solved, if your hospital has enough will. In Keene, our hospital as part of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock system has a unified computer system. When I walk into any doc in the system's office, he or she can pull my name up on a computer screen in the examining room, go over my current meds, and recent appointments with me. From there the doc can also transcribe notes that my PCP, as well others treating me, can refer to.
Also, in this system, I can post e-mail queries to my PCP or any other physician working with me, request an appointment, ask a question, etc. I have found that questions I ask are usually responded to by someone in the office within twenty-four hours. I can also ask for renewals of prescriptions and other matters. This system seems to work quite well. I'm not concerned about privacy as I no longer beieve there is any. In order to get such a system working in Wilmington, I suspect it may take a patient revolution of a large gift to the hospital endowment. Good Luck - Ted
Thanks for the comment, Ted, but we're talking apples and oranges here. That's a fine system they have in Keene, but if your doc (and the other docs you need) aren't in that system, welcome to the merry-go-round. It would be nice if all the MDs around here (or in Keene, for that matter) were linked together electronically, but for lots of reasons that hasn't happened, and sure won't in my lifetime. They get along rather well without it, thank you! And I have no need to either make a large gift or start a revolution! So I take out my frustrations on the Blog. Stay well...
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