The Medical Maze

We've heard from others what a challenge the healthcare system can be--now we know from personal experience.

It felt like a Three Stooges film. One doctor would tell us to call another doctor to schedule an appointment but the other doctor wouldn't make an appointment with a patient only with a doctor's office or only after seeing the pathology report which the first doctor still had.

Then there were the mysteriously moving x-rays, called "films." First we were to pick them up from Chicopee, who needed 24 hours to package what they had in their hands the day before . After 24 hours, our repeated calls eventually discovered they had been moved to Springfield, but the Springfield office claimed not to have them. After several more phone calls, they were found in Springfield and we quickly reclaimed them and delivered them to an Enfield doctor before they could be lost again.

Then the biopsy films (plus the earlier films) went missing when we were told to pick them up from the Enfield, CT and deliver them from West Springfield, MA. The Enfield office claimed to have sent them to Springfield (yet another place we'd never seen or been associated with--not the Springfield office listed above). After several more back and forth calls, it was determined they were still in Enfield, CT but had to be picked up during the time I was conducting a funeral. They wouldn't even speak to Steve on the phone--I had to get out of the shower to call them back. So we sent Steve with a special permission slip to allow him to take the films. Of course, by the time we all made it back home, the Springfield office had called to say that the Enfield office had forgotten to give Steve one of the films (the one of the biopsy) and could I please come to pick it up from--wait for it-- the Springfield, MA location. Somehow in the space of three hours it had gone missing, been found, got caught between pages and not given to Steve and then delivered across state lines to another location where the two of us retrieved it quickly.

Almost all the healthcare professionals we encountered were kind and tried to be helpful. They also must be frustrated by the system which makes caring customer service so much more difficult.

Can you imagine what people do without a car? Or without the energy and patience to muddle through the maze of phone calls, referrals, faxes, and protocol that must be followed? And this is all just in the first week!