Just the short form of the details: small town, one hospital, two clinics. one associated with the hospital, no endo specialist, very few specialists in any area. Nearest larger hospital 200+ miles away. Type II diabetic for 11 years, lost CNP/CDE this summer to her quitting her job, took all summer to find a doc that was accepting new patients (let alone Medicaid patients)…new doc and I clashed day one over diabetic treatments…went looking for another…and found a PA that is wonderful, associated with a hospital in the building stages and doc that oversees her is very knowledgable in diabetes/arthritis/“old lady care”. Manage diabetes with Met, Januvia, and Amaryl, weight loss, exercise and diet.
Okay, So now you have the basics. Here’s the horror story that I am dealing with now…I have not left the care of the doc from hell yet, that change goes into affect on Dec. 1 for medicaid purposes. I had investigated changing docs within that clinic, and was told that they don’t allow changing docs because…the docs will “run into each other” and that could create problems, that a patient chose one over the other. HUH? So because the original doc and I have a personality/treatment plan differences, I can’t see any of the 10 docs in that clinic??? Mind you this isn’t 10 docs in separate offices, this is 10 docs within one building, all using offices and equipment, nurses etc together. That to me seems pretty “god” oriented. I taught school for 15 years, and if a parent and I didn’t like each other, sometimes they would ask to have a different teacher…and we lived with it, no hard feelings, etc. So…now for the next three weeks, and possibly till the end of the year, I won’t have a medical provider.
I can’t tell you how sick and tired of this BS I am. And that is what it is B*ll
S**t. So have others ran into the “god” like attitude of docs and had a hard time finding another or been turned down by associates? I am just thankful that I found the PA cause that is going to work well…but this is just eating at me.
I fired my doc in a smaller practice and started seeing her colleague. I’ve even seen my “fired” doc on several occaisons. Don’t even ask, just do it. Select the Dr. you want to see, call up and make an appointment. Don’t ask anyone, just make an appointment. If anyone asks, say you just didn’t “connect” with the other doctor and say you like the practice and want to stay. This is not about accepting patients. You are already a patient of the practice, so just work on the assumption that the practice has already accepted you as a patient. After all, if your regular doctor was unavailable, one of the other doctors would just see you.
bsc, that would be wonderful, but there is a centralized scheduling desk, they must have the names down somewhere, because when I did ask to make an appt with choice numbers 1, 2 or 3 other than the doc from H…they said, “you’ve left our practice, but we’d be happy to send your records to your current care provider” After a summer and fall of battling for a doc, I’m not willing to battle anymore, when I’ve found someone I can work with. This practice is treated like the honored child of the one and only hospital, so anything they want they get…and WHOA,God forbid they should not get along. I have a call into the Clinic Mgr. and we are going to talk…because I still think this is about as juvenile as it gets among professionals.
You know, that’s about how I look at it.
Good lord, how childish, indeed. 
Personally, I totally agree with how absurb it all is, but I would let it go. It’s just going to cause you more stress and continually bring back up the anger. Three weeks isn’t a long time and hopefully you have enough meds and can just hang in there without a doc. If you do actually have a crisis you can always see the jerk. I would just look forward to the new PA. I’ve found some great NPs and PAs in my life that I liked more than doctors.
Cathy,
You have a right to change doctors within a practice. The whole practice divides its income among everyone according to the rank of the physicians within the group and what they accepted as their percent. They have bought into that, signed it.
Secretaries/office staff are not at the level of the doctors. They may expound what they think, but they may be expounding out of their own personal system, not the physician’s.
The only thing to do is follow your instincts and do what ya gotta do. If you get along well with another physician in the practice, great, and so be it! Do not worry about how the physicians get along. They are talking together all the time at the lunch table of the hospital cafeteria. An individual physician who gets his nose out of joint has to get it back in place or he has no friends on Friday evening.
Leo, I think I’ve lost track of what is important here. I HAVE FOUND A NEW PHYSICIAN that I am very happy with, in another practice…don’t know why I didn’t go there in the first place. They are on the cutting edge of diabetes research, so it will be a great fit. She is one who sits and listens and considers that the patient owns their body, and will do what they feel is right.
My point in asking, is that I find this highly petty and ridicuously childish…and wanted to know, since we only have the two large clinics, if this was a common practice that in the back country of SD I had never heard of…it’s too bad it is this way, but they are the ones who are losing, as patients go elsewhere.
It’s gone Zoe. I am excited about the new PA and how open she is to new thoughts and ideas. She is very supportive of what I am doing, and an excellent cheer leader, along with medical provider.