I am finding a new doctors’ office.
When I was 6 weeks pregnant with B, I went to the doctors’ office and found that I had bronchitis. Doctor #1 prescribed me some pills, a nasal spray, and some cough syrup with codeine. I asked if he was sure I could take something with codeine in it, and he said, “Epidurals are ok for babies, and codeine isn’t as strong as an epidural, so I’m sure it’s fine.” I’m not a doctor, but I am pretty sure that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. So when I went to pick up the medications, I told the pharmacist I didn’t want the cough syrup, and the pharmacist told me that the nasal spray wasn’t safe for pregnant women either. Awesome.
After I had B, I went back to the same doctors’ office because I was having a lot of foot pain. I had to wait over an hour. Then the nurse weighed me and said, “You don’t look like you weigh that much.” Then I told her that I had just had a baby so that she could put it in my medical records, and she said, “We don’t need that for your records, but it explains your weight.” I am pretty sure the fact that I had a c-section is kind of important for my freaking medical record, and also WTF? Then Doctor #2 came to see me and said that I shouldn’t have made this appointment, I should have just asked for a referral to a foot doctor (not the official name). So maybe you should tell your appointment-maker-people that so that I didn’t wait for an hour and then get insulted for no reason.
On Friday I went to the same doctors’ office and saw Doctor #3 because I had an eye infection. I didn’t have to wait long, and the doctor was nice. The doctor said he was going to prescribe some antibiotic eye drops, and I asked him to send the prescription to the pharmacy next door. I walked next door to the pharmacy and asked if they had received my prescription yet, but they hadn’t. It had only been 90 seconds since I left the doctors’ office, so I didn’t worry about it. B and I wandered around and played with some toys for a few minutes. I went back to the pharmacist, and they still hadn’t received my prescription. It still had been only 5 minutes or so, so I decided to come back later when I didn’t have B with me.
I called back a few hours later, and the pharmacy had never received my prescription. At this time, the doctors’ office was closed. I called the two other pharmacies near my house and the doctors’ office, and neither had received a prescription for me. I called the urgent care affiliated with my doctors’ office, figuring they could access my records and send the prescription in for me. When I called urgent care, I got a message telling me to call back when they were open (they were open) or to press 1 to talk to a nurse. I pressed 1 and got sent to the hospital switchboard. I explained what had happened, and the operator insisted that the urgent care was open. I agreed that it was open but said that the phone system wasn’t working. The operator sent me back to the urgent care line. Again, I was transferred back to the hospital switchboard. This happened three times. Then I got super pissed off. H took over and after waiting on hold for a long time was able to talk to someone who could access my records. She said that the doctor had just written in my records that I had a bacterial eye infection, but he hadn’t actually written a prescription for anything.
The woman H was talking to said she would page the on-call doctor and have them write a prescription for me. She said if I didn’t hear back from anyone in 20-30 minutes that we should call urgent care again. I waited 45 minutes before I called urgent care again. After I got the freaking answering machine a couple of times, I was able to speak the receptionist. She said she would have a nurse call me back right away. ANOTHER 45 MINUTES LATER, I called urgent care again. I somehow managed to speak to the person H had spoken to earlier. She was shocked I hadn’t heard from anyone yet and told me that I should have called back a long time ago. As though I hadn’t been trying. Maybe if someone affiliated with this doctors’ office actually did something right just one time, I could have had my stupid eyedrops already.
Anyway, the lady said she would page the on-call doctor again. The on-call doctor finally called me back three hours after she was originally paged. She looked up my records and asked what she should prescribe me. I said antibiotic eyedrops. She asked what kind. SERIOUSLY? I said I didn’t know. She started listing eyedrops as though I know anything about antibiotic eyedrops. I was like just give me something that will get rid of my eye infection, lady.
She sent in the prescription, and when I went in to pick it up (it was 9:30 at night at this point), the pharmacist told me that the doctor I originally saw forgets to write prescriptions all the time.
So maybe if this office didn’t have three doctors that I don’t trust, a rude nurse, an unhelpful appointment-maker-person, an urgent care that doesn’t answer its phone or return phone calls, and an on-call doctor that doesn’t return pages while on call, I might consider going there again.