Post
by NightHawkeye » Thu Jun 08, 2006 8:47 pm
I've got another example of the "Big Lie" in operation. This one falls under the category of docs being insulated from their patients, and docs not doing what's best for their patients. I'll preface this story by saying that the "eye" doc in this instance is a good guy who I've seen for years, and will continue to see. Unfortunately, he's in a large practice and the way the office works very much insulates him.
I had a good visit with this eye doc yesterday just to get another prescription for prednisolone sodium phosphate eye drops. Being on these steroid drops which raise intra-ocular pressure I have to have my pressure checked periodically. (I should have checked the prescription the doc handed me before I left yesterday, but for some reason didn't. My bad. I knew better. It's not the first time.) It seems that what they like to prescribe is prednisolone acetate rather than prednisolone sodium phosphate.
I eventually checked the prescription but that wasn't until long after the office was closed. I knew it would be a big deal to change it today, so I started out by calling the pharmacy to see if they would do a direct substitution. No dice (but there seemed uncertainty in the answer). So I called the doctor's office and left a message with the receptionist. After an hour and a half I called again and was told they were extremely busy. They finally called back a little after noon, when I wasn't by my phone, just to say they had called, but then didn't bother to give a name, just a message to play phone tag. So I called back, but didn't have a name so the receptionist had to put me on hold to find out who had called me and then came back to tell me that Nancy was busy, but would call me back. Another hour or so later Nancy calls back. She had my message but hadn't acted on it, and only reluctantly, after I went through the whole story of how I'd been using these drops for a year and they worked better than prednisolone acetate. . ., anyway she finally agreed to ask the "doctor" to rewrite the prescription for prednisolone sodium phosphate rather than prednisolone acetate. Another hour later she calls back to tell me that the prescription is ready for me to pick up.
I go to get it but I notice that it doesn't have any dosage size listed. Yesterday's prescription was for 10 cc, but since the smallest size is 5 cc, I feel certain that is what the pharmacy would go with. So I ask for Nancy, only to be told that Nancy has already gone home today, but that they could ask one of the other docs to see if one of them would be willing to fix it. I look at the prescription, which is in black ink, and then at the black ink pen in my pocket, and decide that my best course of action is to simply write in the size, so I do, and tell the receptionist, "I'm good now", and smile. She says "Good", and so I leave, thankful for one small victory.
As someone else has commented, the only folks who don't seem to notice these "small problems" with the health care system are the ones who work in it. I suspect that's because they know how to circumnavigate around these sorts of things. I can think of several examples of folks on this forum who work in the health care system and who seem to be able to get the system to respond in a more rational way.
I honestly don't understand how anyone can say there's nothing wrong with the current health care system, but, of course, that's just my opinion.
Regards,
Bill
