Red Tape

I hate doctors.

No wait, that's not entirely true. I hate the people who work for doctors.

I hate the insurance people. I hate the medical records people. I hate the fact that no one is helpful, and they all seem to be rude. I feel like all of the office staff thinks I'm out to cheat the doctor of some money, and so they are rude. And I hate red tape. We moved down here when, September? Right. So then we had to wait for our insurance to change. And then we had to wait for the new year so that we wouldn't have to pay 2 deductibles within 3 months. So I finally go to the doctor down here, and it's a complicated process getting all my records down here. But we are here, records are here, things are settled. Until now. We've got to send those records to yet another doctor, and there are 2 problems.

1) I had an appointment on February 7, and the doctor still hasn't signed the chart for that date. But the results of that appointment are crucial, in fact that is when she mentioned going to this other doctor. Yes, it is March 1. I have no idea why it takes a month to sign a chart. You'd think there would be laws about that, having to get it done in a week. In fact, when I worked at the PT clinic, I think there were rules about that, and they did have to get them signed within a week. Dumb.

2) Apparently when I had "all of my records" sent down from Salt Lake, not all of them got sent. Yet another crucial test result is still in Salt Lake. And they can only send it down to the doctor they sent all my other records to. I thought, ok, we'll just have them pass it along. But come to find out the St George doctor can't just pass it along. Once they get the results one of their doctors has to sign it before it can be passed along. So now I'm not really sure what to do. I could try and fax a signed release form, and get the SLC doctor to send the results to the new doctor, but I don't have a fax machine, or the form for that matter. What I would really like to do is just get the results for myself, then I can always have a copy of them and I can show them to whoever I want. But I don't know how to get that, because, again, I don't have a fax machine. Will they let you receive faxes at the local copy store? These are things I don't know.

But I do know that I'm totally ticked at the medical profession right now. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I just went to the Urgent Care center for my sore throat, spent 2 hours there, and in the end didn't really get a "diagnosis." My actual time with the doctor was this: "What's going on today? Ok, let's take a swab." (He leaves, and comes back in about 20 minutes) "Well, it's not strep, here is a prescription, good luck." I guess you don't need to say much else, but you know, he didn't even tell me what the prescription was for. I got some pills and some cough syrup, who knew he prescribed cough syrup? I'm just all bothered. Maybe the cough syrup will knock me out, and then I won't be stewing about it anymore.