Gah!

[lillibet]

This morning I hauled myself out of bed early, foregoing morning snuggles, in order to make it through late rush hour traffic--cleverly veering out of the stopped lane of traffic waiting to get on Rte 128 South in order to take a scenic route down Bedford Road to Trapelo Road and onto 128 there, where traffic was actually moving, whether that was due to time or distance is unknown, but it was certainly more pleasant than sitting bumper-to-bumper and made me feel clever for knowing a workaround--in order to make it on time to the dermatology check-up that they had scheduled for me on my last visit, only to be told that the appointment was never entered in their computer, despite having been written down on a little card that was handed to me and subsequently entered in my computer.

They were apologetic, although not overly so, and did offer that I could sit and wait for a couple of hours and see if they could squeeze me in, or re-schedule for Friday morning, which I did, my affection for the doctor outweighing my strong desire to say "Nevermind, there are other dermatologists," and storm out.

And yes, I should have called to confirm. Lesson learned.

I think the thing that ticks me off is that if the situation were reversed--if the appointment were in their computer and not mine, they would charge me $125 for a missed appointment, even though they would probably fill in the time with one of the poor souls sitting in their waiting room, hoping to be squeezed in.

Where's my inconvenience fee?

Comments

[wombatbanana.livejournal.com]

Lame :( But at least it didn't involve a car accident, like I started fearing during the first sentence!


At my old PCP, one of the forms they wanted me to sign said something along the lines of "I agree to pay for anything not covered by my insurance." I refused to sign this — it didn't make sense that I'd agree to pay for things without knowing how much they would cost! I don't walk into a store, load things into my cart without ever seeing a price tag, and hand them my credit card without seeing a total. The receptionist actually agreed with me that the form was ridiculous and that I didn't need to sign it.

My dentist was less accommodating when I refused to give my SSN on her intake forms. And laziness and convenience (already being there, already having an appointment) won out over principal there.


In conclusion, I am ever-so-thankful that we have the best health care system in the world, and not any kind of evil socialism!

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. Having lived in London for two years, I frequently miss the NHS.

[bedfull-o-books.livejournal.com]

Where's my inconvenience fee?

You know, I would ask the doctor that on Friday. It would be interesting to see what he says to that. (And dude, $125? Really? That's outrageous.)

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

That's what it said in the paperwork I signed as a new patient. My experience with those fees (most offices have them these days) is that doctors rarely actually charge them--they use the threat to keep you from missing appointments and then use the act of waiving them to make you feel good about them. But that's the stated policy.

[minkrose]

In my experience working for a dermatologist, we would have used it to bill the guy who scheduled FIFTEEN APPOINTMENTS in one year and did not show up for ANY of them, even though we confirmed the appointments every time, usually to him directly and not VM.

He did show up ONCE. He was a really irresponsible person with a lot of STD issues which he wasn't taking care of. He would always sound really desperate on the phone but then he wouldn't show up. Anyway, the whole situation used up a lot of staff time (trying to make sure he showed up, getting his new info, rescheduling him more than once a month, etc), and really warranted charging him for the missed appointments. Unfortunately, we didn't have such a policy in place but we seriously considered creating one because of him.

But yeah. There are a lot of hoops that are unnecessary.

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Sure--I don't really mind that the policy is in place, it just irks me that it's unbalanced.

That guy sounds VERY annoying!

[muffyjo]

That's a whole lot of GRRRRrrrr. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. And missing snuggles was adding insult to injury. No fair!

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Lemme tell you, Michael is going to get an earful about this on Friday! The part that's irking me now, that I didn't mention in the original post is that at first the staff person tried to tell me that I had cancelled the appointment on the 19th. Um, no. Then he says wait, let me look into this, pulls the sheet from my last appointment and says yes, there's a note on it for a six-month follow-up, but nothing was ever entered in the computer. Which then makes me feel like they were trying to deceive me somehow and just generally adds to my sense of being ill-treated and stupid for not calling to confirm.

[muffyjo]

Yes, let Michael know.

Reminds me that I haven't seen in him in forever, either.