I thought cardiology clinics were supposed to HELP you with your heart issues, not make you so furious that you feel like you’re going to have a heart attack if you can’t calm down.
I had to hang up on their scheduling clerk TWICE today, as nicely as I could muster: “I am going to hang up now. Goodbye.”
They called me at the last minute to tell me that my echocardiogram, scheduled two weeks ago for tomorrow (Saturday) was cancelled and that they would “accommodate” me by seeing me on Monday at noon.
You know, Monday. That day when I’m at work IN A DIFFERENT CITY.
Sheesh.
She couldn’t quite grasp why I was so upset at their “offer”.
Why did they cancel at the last minute? Death? Fire? Earthquake? No. They just decided to change their schedule to no longer offer Saturday appointments – less than 24 hours before my appointment.
Oh, well. I’m not important, right?
I’ll bet you 10,000 bucks that someone wanted to go hiking or to the beach. This HMO is just that freaking ditzy, that this would seem normal to them. Patients ALWAYS come last. Always.
These are the same freaks who stopped providing crutches in their Urgent Care clinic and don’t have anyone on-staff in the Urgent Care clinic who can push a wheelchair down to radiology “after hours”. Urgent Care is open. Radiology is open. You just can’t get there. So what if you show up in the Urgent Care clinic with an injury that renders you unable to walk down to radiology “after hours”? Gee, that’s a real puzzler. (Insert shrugging of shoulders here.)
I swear I am not making this up: I had to beg a social worker from a different department, who was in her coat leaving the hospital, to please go find a wheelchair and take me down to radiology for an x-ray because NO ONE in the Urgent Care clinic would help me get down there. I was about to dial 911 and ask for an ambulance to take me AWAY from their Urgent Care clinic to a REAL hospital just before she walked by and asked me why I was leaning against the wall, sobbing in agony.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH HEALTH CARE PROVIDERS IN THIS FREAKING COUNTRY?
I would be fired in ONE heartbeat for treating my customers the way the idiots at my HMO treat me on a regular basis – and they’re supposed to be all award-winning and terrific. Jesus wept.
OK, I’ve got to let it go for now and think about something else or I’m going to come apart at the seams.