why is the medical community so ass-backwards?
Thanks to my fall, I have discovered that aside from diagnostic tools, the entire medical community has its technological head up its ass. The hospital can't talk to your doctor, the ambulance can't talk to the hospital, and two doctors' offices certainly can't talk to each other. Every single thing I have had to have done, no matter how simple, has required me to play nursemaid to people WHOSE FUCKING JOB IT IS TO DO THESE THINGS!
I needed to get the staples taken out of my head, so I called my doctor. His receptionist told me that he can't do that, so he'd give me a referral to see the surgeon he always refers people to. So what I have to do is this: call the other doctor's office and make an appointment, then CALL THEM BACK and read them the doctor's insurance code. If this is the doctor he always refers people to, why don't they have the number fucking written down somewhere? So I called, made the least convenient appointment possible, and called back my stupid doctor's office. And they had left for the day. It was 3:45. So I called again the next morning, and was put on hold for forty-five minutes, whereupon someone hung up on me. Unable to waste more time with it (I do have a job, you know), I waited and called again the next day. I finally got through and read them the damn number. But when I got to my appointment, there was no referral. The receptionist told me to go out in the hall and call them again. So I did. Nobody answered. It was 2:30. The receptionist finally agreed to try calling herself, and what do you know? It took her about ten seconds to look up the doctor's private line, call him, find out that none of his staff was in, and get his assurance that as soon as they got back they'd process my referral.
Why does it have to be this ridiculous? Even if you were to ignore the fact that the whole concept of referrals is stupid, how hard could it be for my doctor's office to look up a number that's available on Aetna's website?
And today I got a bill from the city of Philadelphia, addressed to a absurd misspelling of my name, for $510. For my five minute ride in the ambulance.
They never bothered to ask the hospital what my name was, much less for my insurance information so they could make a claim. No, they just sent me a bill. Now it's MY responsibility to call the idiots at my insurance company and straighten it out.
FUCK THEM ALL.
I needed to get the staples taken out of my head, so I called my doctor. His receptionist told me that he can't do that, so he'd give me a referral to see the surgeon he always refers people to. So what I have to do is this: call the other doctor's office and make an appointment, then CALL THEM BACK and read them the doctor's insurance code. If this is the doctor he always refers people to, why don't they have the number fucking written down somewhere? So I called, made the least convenient appointment possible, and called back my stupid doctor's office. And they had left for the day. It was 3:45. So I called again the next morning, and was put on hold for forty-five minutes, whereupon someone hung up on me. Unable to waste more time with it (I do have a job, you know), I waited and called again the next day. I finally got through and read them the damn number. But when I got to my appointment, there was no referral. The receptionist told me to go out in the hall and call them again. So I did. Nobody answered. It was 2:30. The receptionist finally agreed to try calling herself, and what do you know? It took her about ten seconds to look up the doctor's private line, call him, find out that none of his staff was in, and get his assurance that as soon as they got back they'd process my referral.
Why does it have to be this ridiculous? Even if you were to ignore the fact that the whole concept of referrals is stupid, how hard could it be for my doctor's office to look up a number that's available on Aetna's website?
And today I got a bill from the city of Philadelphia, addressed to a absurd misspelling of my name, for $510. For my five minute ride in the ambulance.
They never bothered to ask the hospital what my name was, much less for my insurance information so they could make a claim. No, they just sent me a bill. Now it's MY responsibility to call the idiots at my insurance company and straighten it out.
FUCK THEM ALL.