Comments | phinnia: my hell is a never ending phone queue

phinnia

my hell is a never ending phone queue

Jul 15, 2008 10:49

Attempting to find (a) person to do the spinal pump surgery and (2) an orthopedic surgeon to look at my ankle and determine if it needs surgery also. Apparently it is easier to find a duck-billed platypus burger on rye bread. I have left what is, frankly, a ridiculous number of messages, and I am scarcely further ahead than I am now ( Read more... )

healthcare is like herding cats, six impossible things before lunch

Comments 11

starrynytes4me July 15 2008, 18:17:44 UTC

Look for a good neurosurgeon for the pain pump. Don't let an orthopedic jackass TOUCH your spine. Lesson learned from my Mommy.

phinnia July 15 2008, 19:21:58 UTC

good to know. Orthopedic guy is doing the ankle; neuro doesn't do the pumps, they send you to the pain clinic, but the woman there specializes in them, from what I've been able to deterine.

starrynytes4me July 15 2008, 19:29:03 UTC

Orthopedic guy for the ankle sounds really appropriate. It's just that they aren't the best at nerve pain injuries from the spine from our findings.

pwcorgigirl July 15 2008, 19:15:09 UTC

Your regular docs don't do referrals? Good heavens, hon. No wonder you spend your entire life on the phone.

Around here, you can't get in to see a specialist without a referral from another doctor. The specialists simply do not return phone calls from the unwashed public. This state of affairs does not make our family doctor happy, since their practice has to employ someone who does nothing all day long but call other doctors' offices.

phinnia July 15 2008, 19:20:56 UTC

Oh, they do referrals - but the referrals tend to get lost, so I have to chase them down. Sigh. :P And it doesn't help that no one has any idea where to send me, so I'm frequently the one doing 90% of the legwork, coming back to my doctor and saying "okay, I need to go here to see dr. such and this because of this problem."

Yeah. ridiculous.

purridot July 15 2008, 19:46:24 UTC

I thought I read that you had a ridiculous number of massages. But maybe that would help?

cindy_lou_who8 July 15 2008, 19:54:49 UTC

Wow. That sounds like a ridiculous amount of work. I hope they at least give you a list of dr's to choose from?

Sometimes they give me the referral directly. But when I went to pt, they told me to just pick one of the therapists, since it didn't matter.

They gave me a direct neuro consult, and then she reffered me to the second neuro.

Things should be so much simpler than they really are.

mactavish July 15 2008, 21:07:49 UTC

I hope some of the moving ahead will come when they return calls.