We Need Change
our healthcare system ISN'T WORKING
Why are healthcare providers & insurance companies not being held to the same standard that we are?
In short we all know the answer to this question. It’s the system. A system that is broken, greedy and only for profit. A system that forces disabled and chronically ill people to do more while almost always receiving less. Every providers office that I have been to has the same policies. Cancel or reschedule at least 24 hours in advance or risk being charged a late fee or being dropped as a patient all together. I do understand why these rules are in place. Everyone wants to stay on time and no one wants to waste resources.
The problem is that only one of the participating parties is punished for breaking these rules. This weight almost always falls back onto the patient, adding unneeded stress and uncertainty. We are almost always told to arrive to an appointment 15-30 minutes early, yet we are left in waiting rooms far past our appointment times. We are told to give at least 24 hours of notice before an appointment change, yet offices change appointments with ZERO communication.
On Monday I woke up to a call from my OBGYN
I answered to her saying, "I was just calling to see if you were having trouble with the video chat." I was immediately confused because my appointment wasn’t supposed to be until 4:00pm that day. I thought maybe I mixed up the times, but nope. After looking back at my reminder text messages on Friday, my appointment was set for 4:00pm, but they had changed the appointment to 7:45am without calling me.
I was woken up and thrust into an appointment that I was not fully prepared for. I specifically ask for afternoon or evening appointments because I have a horrible time sleeping. In order to comply with the rules I stated above I need later appointments. Not only did this office not call me, they changed my appointment on a Friday afternoon without speaking to me first.
To be more precise they messaged me on MyChart at 3:38pm. I have very frequent issues with MyChart messages not coming in on time so I did not receive a notification about the change. Even if I had received the message, I wouldn’t have been able to call back to reschedule. It is already notoriously hard to get anyone to answer the phone on a normal week day, much less a Friday afternoon right before closing. The office texted me their normal reminder text on Sunday, but I didn’t pay much attention to the time because why would I? No one had called me or said anything otherwise. I get about a million reminder texts every day. We should not have to double and triple check the dates and times of every single appointment, every single time we get a text.
Some months I have close to 20 appointments. All I’m asking for is real communication. What if I hadn’t woken up to take the phone call? Would I have had to wait another 3 months for an new appointment?
This is a perfect example of these offices not being held to the same standard that we are. They did not inform me of the change at least 24 hours before the appointment. I’m almost glad I didn’t see the time change because I would have been stressing all weekend about not being able to wake up for the new appointment time.
I know it sounds like I’m complaining about a minor inconvenience.
While an abrupt appointment change might be a slight inconvenience to some, it can be a day or week altering event for others. I am extremely lucky to be able to stay home and focus solely on keeping track of all my appointments. However, the majority of chronically ill people are still working. Changing an appointment with no true communication after waiting for months is simply unacceptable.
What most don't understand is just HOW MUCH preparation we do for these appointments. If this was the first time this had ever happened to me I probably wouldn’t be writing an entire article about it. However, this has happened to me while working with many different providers across many different platforms.
I am often tracking symptoms, new medication trials, preparing updates from other providers, preparing results from testing, etc. to talk to these providers about. This is months worth of work and waiting. The average wait time for follow up appointments for me is at least 3-6 months. If an appointment is missed, that could mean waiting an additional 3-6 months, delaying care even further.
DELAYS in appointments are DELAYS in recovery and care.
An abrupt change to an appointment time or date without proper communication can be extremely distressing. And I say extremely distressing because while we wait for appointments we are enduring continuous and often times progressively worsening symptoms.
If I had missed this appointment…
For this appointment specifically I had been waiting to update this provider on a birth control we trialed and a new one to potentially try. I had been waiting for this for about 4 months. That means I had to endure 4 more excruciating periods while I waiting. If I had missed the call there is no telling when I could have been rescheduled and how many more periods I would have had to endure without care.
A simple phone call would have fixed all of this
We Need Change
Bad communication is a symptom of a rotten system
We need our providers to TALK to each other while keeping us in the loop. We are the experts on our conditions and our voices deserve a seat at the table. True cooperation could keep so many from falling through the cracks. I know all healthcare providers are stretched thin right now, but so are the patients. We are the ones suffering the most because of this rotten system.
Insurance companies need to be ABOLISHED. They are SCAM companies and they DO NOT HELP ANYONE. They are DELAYING CARE and they are literally ROBBING us!!! The system as a whole is the real problem. Communication between providers could thrive if insurance companies didn't control their every decision.
I could list a million problems with our current healthcare system, but the bottom line is that it ISN'T WORKING. A simple miscommunication can be traumatizing when we have spent our entire lives in a system designed to capitalize off our continued suffering.
We deserve real and free healthcare
CELEBRATE EVERY WIN. CHAMPION EVERY BATTLE.
Sam, I'm so sorry you're going through this. I feel you. The other issue here is that many people, particularly older folks, don't have access to portal or text messages. Expecting them to keep up with technology like this is an unfair form of ageism. And don't even get me started on the devil we call insurance ...
This isn't a small thing, this is awful. I'm sorry this is just the normal experience for you