Open Access — My Ass!

O.K. So my doctor’s office has this “open access” program, where you call on the day you want to come in and if your doctor has hours that day, you get to go in and see him or her. They have regular-type appointments too, but they fill up rather fast.

So, last March, I had some major trouble getting in. There was a lot of frustration and added stress because my doctor was going out of town in a few days and would be gone for several weeks but I needed a Depo shot and med check before she went. There was this frustrating round-about with the scheduling people and in the end, my doctor saw me outside of her usual hours.

At that time, she told me to make an appointment for the 2nd or 3rd week of June so we could avoid all of that frustration again. When I went up to the front desk to schedule the appointment, I was told that they couldn’t schedule that far ahead and to call back in April to schedule it then. When I called back in April, she was booked all through June and I was told to go through the Open Access process again.

So, this Monday, I called about 9am to try to get in to her afternoon Open Access hours. I had to leave a message and the nurse didn’t call me back until after 1pm and told me that I have to call before 8:15am to get into Open Access.

So her next Open Access hours are today in the evening. I called at 8:05am this morning and got the answering service who told me they couldn’t make an appointment and to call back in a few minutes when someone was actually in the office. At 8:17am, I called and again got the answering service though the message on the phone said they opened at 8:15am — the answering service said they don’t open until 8:30am.

I called at 8:30am and was on hold for about 5 minutes and when I talked to someone, they said she could see me at 7:30pm. WTF? Well, I have class on Wednesdays so I told her how ridiculous all of this was and left a message to have a nurse call me.

The nurse called me about 45 minutes later. We have compromised in that I will go in an get my Depo shot from a nurse at 4pm and she is going to discuss my desire to increase the Prozac with the doctor and we’ll see how that goes. Really, it doesn’t matter to me if I see her or not at this point.

tags: wellness

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