trace…
10am – 10:25 – left to Palo Alto for my appointment. silly me misses the entrance and gets a little lost finding the building, adding approximately 10 minutes to travel time
10:30 – finished filling out questionaire and waiting for the nurse to call me in…
…
10:55 – 10 minutes past my scheduled appointment, i walk up to the receptionist and reconfirm my time
me: Hi, i have an appointment at 10:45?
receptionist: with who?
me: Dr. King
receptionist: he’s about 45 minutes behind
me: *raise eyebrow*.. oki
receptionist: there are 3 patients in front of you
me: *blank face* … oOoK
*and i walk back to sit down*
11:05am – nurse calls my last name and another patient to come to the back. i sit in a back room to the right
11:10am – nurse comes back in and asks a few questions like, what happened? which knee is it? when did this happen? then he leaves and says the doctor will be right with me
…
…
… 20 minutes later
…
11:30am – someone enters and it’s not the doc. it’s his assistant (note: i only know her by assistant, no introduction, no name).
11:31am – after a pull on my leg and a bit of rubbing around my right knee, she says, “you need an MRI”
me: OK, can we get it done today?
assistant: depends, who’s your insurance?
me: Blue Cross PPO
assistant: great, yea, we can get it in today
11:32am – she leaves to get the MRI appointment scheduled…
11:35am – she comes back
assistant: OK, you’re scheduled for an MRI in Menlo Park at 12:45
me: oki… *damn that was fast*
assistant: we’ll get the results back and find out if you need orthoscopic surgery or not. The doctor will be in to see you to confirm
me: *blank face* oki…
…
…
waiting
…
11:50 – finally, i see the doctor i was scheduled for. lay down and he puts some pressure around my knee
doc: you need an MRI
me: oki…
doc: there’s swelling in the knee, which means you have an injury – it’s either there’s abrasion on the cartiledge, which doesn’t necessarily require surgery, or you have a torn meniscus…and you’ll need surgery for that
me: oki…
at the same time he takes a knee model and gives me a 15 second lesson in knee mechanics, informing me that the meniscus is what cushions and because there is no blood supply, it cannot heal itself.
couple minutes later…
11:52 – doc tells me to change back in go outside and make a right. that’s it? geez! i was scheduled for 10:45… pretty much waited around for an hour and see the doc for 2 minutes – oh how wonderful.
I walk out and a lady schedules me for my follow up to go over the MRI results. We aim for next Tuesday, and as she puts me in for a time, i notice a small popup warning on her screen saying “possible overbooking!” – m*therf*ckers.
i’m starting to assume that overbookings happen quite often and outrageous wait times are the norm with popular, high demand docs and large clinics. i didn’t realize the luxury i had at my first doctor visit, where i waited 5 minutes and spent 25 minutes with the doc going over my injury. perhaps the first doc isn’t in his field so much for the money, but to actually honor the hippocratic oath and treat patients with time and care. i personally felt that the pamf clinic is a money making machine, ordering MRIs for every patient and getting fees from every person they can squeeze quickly in a day…
not a good experience.
bummer, but i was elated as hell knowing my knee will be OK without surgery.
