As the title might suggest, I'm extremely fed up with my team and considering the possibility of firing them all. I feel like I constantly spin my wheels, and spend way more time than I should in an effort to get anything done. I see these commercials on TV that depict a patient who was diagnosed with something, had an amazing team that was entirely plugged in to the rest of the team, and how great they were to work with. Whenever I see these I just shake my head and say, that doesn't exist. I realize these are paid advertising for these facilities, but should it be as hard as I am about to depict?
My insurance requires referrals. More than once, I've called my primary care doctor for a referral at least a week in advance. I either get no call back, or if I leave the details on their voice mail, the referral never gets entered. This leads to two or three follow up calls by me, which ends in me sitting in the waiting room at the office I needed the referral for, on the phone with the primary, and having the secretary struggle through entering it while I wait on the phone. All the while, the secretary on the phone is mumbling in my ear, oh, what is my password for this, oh is running slow, must be because of the cold, etc. Most recently, two voice mails, and a verbal message with the secretary, all which were not returned, and I ended up on the phone an hour before the appointment while the secretary entered it.
I'm currently trying to get clearance for my second eye surgery. The surgeon wanted to do it 4 days after he saw me, its been 3 weeks now, and I'm still fighting tooth and nail with just about every one of my team members. Insurance wouldn't pay for a lens measurement being done at the hospital the morning of surgery to clear a cataract, so I had to find (on my own) someone who was covered, and capable of doing this measurement. This doctor couldn't get a measurement on the eye due to the oil in my eye. He measured the other eye and said it would be fine to use the other eye. Come to find out from my retina specialist, he doesn't feel this is acceptable, and is currently fighting my insurance to get it covered at the hospital, where they have someone who does these measurements all day long and can do it right.
In the mean time, I got my clearance from the primary doctor, which I had to send myself to the surgical coordinator since last time the family doctor didn't date the paperwork, and I had to go to their office and take it from them the day before surgery to send myself, after repeated calls to have it resent were unsuccessful. (Nothing like cutting it close.) I had to ask the primary doctor multiple times this time to check here or date here, he didn't pay attention to what he was doing and just rushed through the form. I had my blood work done for both the endo and primary doctor the same day. I called on Friday for the results from my endo, and they said theirs weren't available yet, but she saw in the system that the primary was ready. I called the primary's other office Monday (they are only in my town two afternoons a week) and asked for them so I could get it to the surgical coordinator. She said she can't access them from that office, and can only see that office's results there. When I pressed her, she said she would look, and came back to say she can get to the site there, but they weren't ready yet. I feel like she just didn't want to do her job and bother to look. I can't imagine my endo, from an entirely different practice could see them, and this office couldn't.
They finally posted to the Labcorp site, and I sent them along. I've been trying to get my results from the endo now. The endo didn't accept them to where they show up in the lab's system yet, and they weren't in the endo's site yet. I called and asked if I could get them, and they called back to say not until my appointment. When I asked if they could at least post them online, they said they should be. After I pressed them, they posted part of the report, but not what I needed. I called today to see if I could at least get my A1c for another appointment that I have before I see the endo again. I was told they could fax it to the other doctor but not provide it to me until the doctor discussed it with me. I don't understand that. I can have it sent to another doctor, who will inevitably talk to me about it before the endo does, but they can't just give it to me. What's the big secret? This is my health information, taken from my own blood, and they won't let me know what the results are until I get in to 'talk about it' with the doctor.
So, surgery is supposed to be next Wednesday, and I still need to get clearance stuff straightened out, results for a couple doctors and the surgical coordinator, and finish the insurance fight. I feel like the entire system is working against me.
Is it supposed to be this hard? Does anyone else deal with this level of frustration on a regular basis? Should I fire them all and start over after I get this surgery stuff out of the way?