I was about 12 years old when I learned that lying is difficult,and usually not worth the trouble.
You will recall maybe the incident we had with Steve and his G.I.surgeon. The doctor started out with inviting Steve to join hands and say a prayer for a successful outcome.
That scared the hell out of Steve. I thought it was peculiar but I have long since given up trying to understand people’s religious beliefs.
The results were reasonably good, yes he did have esophageal damage, it wasn’t pre-cancerous and he needed to consult another surgeon.
For specialties like this, OHSU (Oregon Health Sciences University) is the best (maybe in the Northwest.) There are two specialists in the field both rather eminent in their profession. His current surgeon contacted one of them and was told he was interested in treating Steve.
A day or so later he (the original surgeon) called us back and said that Steve had been refused, because his insurance was not accepted by them.
Refused, REFUSED! This is outrageous, he sees three other specilalists there. Diana went into problem solving mode and called the department clerk who does scheduling at OHSU. Let me look up his chart she was told. Why was he refused was Diana’s question?
Now came the lie. “We’ve had so many referrals that we have had to limit our patients to residents only in Oregon.”
Diana told her that their website showed that at least three of the eight specialists in the department are listed as “accepting new patients” and it didn’t seem reasonable to turn away patients when their practice was still open.
For those of you living outside of the region Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington are really one big metropolis, often referred to with a hyphen. The Portland-Vancouver area is as close to one big city as you can get. Denying such a large portion is insane.
Diana called the financial department at the University and they were baffled also, though they did say each department has it’s own billing structure. Diana called the department clerk again and was giving the same run-around.
Diana concluded her conversation with ” Who I can appeal to about this?” The usual reply before hanging up and ignoring someone… “We will call you back with that.” Not surprisingly, that information was never forthcoming.
Alright, dammit!, I’ll hurt them If they are going to be so stupid! I know that this is childish of me but that’s the way I react. I started preparing a press alert to the newspapers on the Washington side of the border, there are eight daily and weekly rags that are available. Today was the day that I was going to nail down the exact details of the refusal when I learned that the original surgeon was leaving his practice here.
Suddenly the light dawns, It wasn’t Steve. I wasn’t the state he lives in. It was this bozo surgeon. This secretary had been given instructions to NOT accept him because of the referring physician and she was a very poor lair.
That’s an unfair thing to to do a her. Her job is probably hard enough as it is. The funny thing is , if she had told us that the local doctor was an idiot, we would have understood. Such are the state of professional ethics.
I will call back today, and see if I can get a more reasonable answer.
