Friday, June 5, 2009

Trust

I received my "pre-surgery packet" from Dr. Mayo's office. That's M-A-Y-O. However, the letter from his office referred to him as "Dr. MAY." Hmmmmm.

This packet was supposed to contain all of the information I might need to make plans and prepare.

It told me that I need to report for surgery at 5:30 AM on July 8th. The letter also states that I must be at the hospital "no later than 8:00 AM." Hmmmmm.

Females on birth control pills must stop taking them two months before surgery, per this letter, which I received 4.5 weeks before my surgery. I am not taking birth control pills, but if I were, I would not be happy with the timing of this information. Hmmmmmm.

The letter doesn't mention that I am not to take NSAIDs the week before surgery; I only know that because I asked specifically. What if I hadn't? HELLO, I have a condition which causes a lot of pain here; they must guess I am taking pain killers, as are most of their patients. But no mention of this very important little piece of information.

The fact that I think the office staff is ... um, useless, disorganized, rude and ... um ... well, stupid ... is confirmed. Other information in the letter was equally confusing or poorly worded. So evidently they WANT to get follow-up phone calls from confused patients, instead of re-writing the letter to make it actually useful and informative. I intend to waste their time with a phone call later today in order to get all of the now-lingering questions answered. I can't imagine I'll be the first to do so.

I do trust Dr. Mayo. But I'm starting to wonder about his judgment in choosing office staff. I just hope he has more attention to detail than they do, or I fear I'll end up with my left elbow attached to my right buttock when surgery is over, or something equally horrible. Yikes, my apprehension level has just gone up another notch.

2 comments:

Colleen said...

I know exactly what you mean. I would say everything was disorganized from my first apt. to my hospital stay at U of Iowa. At least you got a packet! I will say the actual surgery itself went perfectly. Which I would say is the most important thing. Unfortunetly you will have to speak up a lot and be your own advocate. Best wishes!
Colleen
chdpluspaoequalswtf.blogspot.com

HipSk8 said...

Sad to hear that it's not just this medical office. I mean, it's really not hard to give good information in a timely manner. I'm just asking for good customer service as I would from any other business, but doctors don't see it that way.

It makes me even angrier because it's pretty likely I'll be paying out of pocket for this surgery, which means I really am a paying customer in addition to being a patient. But they don't see it that way and I really have no recourse.