Story of the Day 11/ 16/2010

I had an appointment at the doctor’s today.

Last week, I had an appointment with the audiologist. I am trying to get new hearing aids. This all started about 11 months ago. I had an appointment with the ENT and after the audiologist at his office tested me, it was decided that I definitely needed new hearing aids. Of course, since we are talking about me, it took me 11 months to get around to doing it, and then the audiologist let me know that the audiogram was too old to use, and he needed to do another one. Well, after he tested me, he sat down and explained that he could not fit me for hearing aids. I needed to go back to the doctor, because my audiogram had not only changed, but I now had a spike – a hearing loss- at 1,000 Hz in both ears. This could indicate an actual medical problem…so, he faxed the audiogram over and the ENTs office called me so promptly that I almost hadn’t arrived home yet. This was a new ENT. Okay, that isn’t true, this is an ENT I hadn’t been to in several years, but the one I had been to within the past year was no longer part of our insurance network.

This brings us to my appointment this morning.
You see, last week, the ENT’s office mailed me a packet of papers that I needed to fill out. I did and I brought them with me and arrived at the office more than 15 minutes before my appointment time. This was in adherence to the instructions in the packet.
I gave the receptionist my driver’s license and my insurance card and sat down to wait for my appointment.

After about 10 minutes, the receptionist called me over. She wanted me to fill out a new form. Well, it was the same form I had already filled out at home and given to her; but, as she explained, I had filled out the first one wrong. I did not sign and say that I had received the office’s privacy policy. Instead I had written the word NOT in before signing it.
I explained that I had filled the form out correctly, since they had definitely not given me a copy of the policy.
She explained that she was not the person who sent the packets out and she wasn’t involved with why they hadn’t sent me one. I said that was fine, but they hadn’t, and now I was being asked to sign, again , for something they hadn’t given me. She points down towards the other end of the counter and tells me there are copies in a folder over there. I took one.

Then she asks me to sign the new form. I told her, “No.”
I told her that I was accurate in what I had written on the form- that I was asked to sign, but not given the policy. I told her that if she wanted me to sign another form, I needed a letter on their letterhead that they had first asked me to sign it (twice without giving me the policy. If she wanted to do that, I would be happy to sign a new form that they had given it to me. Otherwise, what I had written and signed was correct.
She told me that she couldn’t do that and she needed to speak with the office manager.
“Alright,” I said, and sat down to wait.

I sat and thought about how this wasn’t nearly as bad as the time I went to the breast center for my mammogram, and they wanted me to sign the form. And I wrote on it that they asked me to sign the form, but hadn’t provided me with the policy.
That time, the woman gave me a second form to sign- she told me she couldn’t’ accept the first form- that I had corrected to reflect reality. I told her “no” because she hadn’t given me a copy of their privacy policy.

“I can’t, we are out of them.”

I told her that it was really weird that they were going to collect $800 to do a mammogram, but couldn’t spend 5 cents to make a Xerox so that they were in compliance with federal law. She ended up just accepting the form I had originally given her. The one saying that no, they had not give me a copy of their policy.
But back to this morning.

About 10 minutes later, the receptionist comes back to the counter and lets me know that the office manager is not in. That took a long time to find out in a relatively small office, but maybe she also had to use the restroom.
I went and sat back down.

A few minutes later, the receptionist gets my attention and tells me that I need to fill to the new form , or the doctor will not see me.
I tell her that if he wants me to fill it out, he needs to give me a letter that I was initially asked to fill it out and not provided with a copy.” The n I added, “If he won’t, and will not honor my appointment, I expect that you will not charge me for cancelling my appointment with less than 24 hours notice, since he will have cancelled it.”
She leaves for a moment and comes back and tells me that the doctor will not provide me with a note.

So, I left. My appointment never happened, and I still don’t’ have new hearing aids.

When I told this story over dinner, this evening, I also explained to my daughter that 9 times out of 10, I have been sent such forms with no copy of the privacy policy. I used t accept the “oh we forgot to include it.” And just sign a new form for the office when they would finally give me a copy of the policy. I stopped doing this a few years ago, because one receptionist said, “oh , we don’t’ want to waste the money on the copying and extra postage” and then I realized that I was not experiencing a situation where all of these offices would include every other paper necessary, but were all managing to forget the same one. Yes, I admit, I was being gullible to keep believing this improbability for so long, but that has always been my nature. That is when I changed my policy for filling out a new form that made it look like they had, all along, offered me the privacy policy sans any “omissions”.

My daughter was still a bit startled, and my husband told her about what happened when she was born. Well, before she was born.

Before the epidural, which my obstetrician had recommended, a nurse came in and asked me to sign a form. I read it and said, “I am not going t sign this.”
She asked me why.
“It says here that the doctor has explained the various risks from the procedure, and I haven’t’ ever even seen this doctor.”
The nurse explained that this was the way they did it. And I let her know that I was not going to sign a paper that was a lie.
Well, after a few minutes, the nurse comes back in, with the doctor, who then explains the risks or f the procedure, and I sign the form.

As Larry explained it to Sarah, “She was just not going to let you be born if it meant signing something that wasn’t true!”
Well, I would have let her be born, obviously I had no control over that, but I would not have signed the form.

Because it wasn’t true.

Meanwhile, I am looking for a different ENT. One who thinks that truth and following the federal law are of some importance. This is a good thing. I think that using any other kind of doctor is really kind of a scary proposition. And I am amazed that other people don’t’ feel the same way.