Patient vs Customer

Attention all medical staff: You provide a service! And a very expensive one at that!

I truly am fed up with the medical profession acting as though they are doing us some kind of favor! You know, if we had socialized medicine and I, as the patient, did not pay a dime to them (save in my much higher taxes) perhaps I wouldn't be as indignant. However, Every week I pay someone who pays them when I need attention. And I pay more when I go in. It's funny that they call it a "co-pay." As though someone else were paying with me. No, no! My insurance company is using my money to pay the doctor. So really, it's a double-pay, not a co-pay. But I digress.

Bear with me as I recount, briefly, what has ignited my ire:

1) The Queen of Hearts and I are currently doing foster care. I needed to have my doctor sign a sheet saying that he had seen me and I was healthy so that we could move forward with this process. I called my medical service provider and was told that they could schedule me in for May... of 2007. When I informed them that was unacceptable, and politely explained my situation and what was needed, they did nothing to assist me further. After circumventing the "scheduling department" of my doctor's office, I had to leave 7 messages for my doctor's personal nurse before I could garner a 5 minute meeting with my primary care physician that took place several weeks after my calls. Even then, they seemed put out.

2) As we expect our new baby, the Queen of Hearts and I were going to her regular OB/GYN. Several times while we were there, the doctor did his thing and then would speed out of the room like he couldn't ask us to leave quickly enough. More than once, the Queen did not even have time to ask the questions that had been on her mind for the previous month. On top of that, pregnancy visits are not subject to a co-pay, unless the doctor actually has to do something. Now we have a bill from our insurance company for a few of our regularly scheduled appointments because the doctor suggested certain tests to ensure the health of the baby. Heaven forbid the doctor should actually provide the service for which he is being paid.

3) A coworker brought her mother to the ER. The triage nurse asked her 89 year old mother what was wrong. When her daughter (my coworker) began to answer the nurse spat at her, "I will hear it from the patient." Well, her mother didn't understand the question and gave what the daughter knew to be an incorrect answer. The daughter attempted to respond again and was told to "shut up."

Excuse me? Our being there allows them to earn a living. Emergency or not, we are their livelihood.

Here's a phrase that the medical profession would do well to learn:

Customer Service. That's right, we are their customers. It's not as though you have to lure us in, or give us a "good deal." Doctor's offices never have a "President's Day Sale." This is because people are always in need of doctors. However, we do have a choice of doctors. The Queen of Hearts and I just exercised that choice. We didn't care much for the "customer service" of the doctor mentioned above. So we have chosen to have "Full House" [If you have a better nickname for the little one, feel free to suggest it] delivered elsewhere.

Consider how you'd react if a non-"essential" service (For example a restaurant, or travel agent, or contractor) treated you the way your doctor's office treats you. With the same contempt, disregard, and "you are nothing but trouble" attitude.

I called my favorite restaurant to make a reservation. They told me that I could eat with them in about a year. "But I'm hungry now." "Well, if you are hungry now you can come in and sit in our waiting room and we'll see if we can get to you in the next several hours. That'll be extra. If you can live with your hunger for a few more weeks, we can call you at a very inconvenient time for you and let you know that there's been a cancellation and we could squeeze you in at an equally inconvenient time."

Why do people hate going to the doctor? Because the doctor doesn't like seeing you just as much. Until we socialize, we deserve to be treated the same as we'd expect any other business to treat us. Hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and other medically related businesses all make a hefty profit on us, yet we don't demand proper treatment. Well, not anymore. The next time a medical practitioner treats me like a hassle, I'll treat them like a business.

But that's all just my opinion.