Shinn the Writer

The Log

 

Every year at tax time, I wonder why I didn’t keep a log of my medical doings. Who I visited when, associated mileage, payments made out of pocket or received from insurance. Dental became especially hard to track when I began having to pay up front and then be reimbursed by Delta. It’s just a pain to reconstruct after a year has gone by. Then the next year starts and I forget to set up the log. 

 

This problem has been getting worse as large medical corporations gobble up my providers. No longer are my transactions coming from Gastroenterology Associates, they come from BASS Medical Group. So which ologist is this? Could be my gastroenterologist, my urologist, my cardiologist, or perhaps it’s just some spam coming my way. Last I heard, BASS was a ticketing agency that handled my entry the last time I saw Bob Seger!

 

Recently, my urologist was gobbled up by Sutter Health, and I had an appointment scheduled for September 22 at 1:00. Or so it said on my calendar. But at 9:01 I received a text telling me that I had had the appointment “recently” and would I provide feedback. All I got to identify the sender was a phone number. Given the time of the text, had I written the date wrong on my calendar? My calendar has the unfortunate characteristic that the first day of the week shows as Monday, not Sunday, so I figured that perhaps I had written down the appointment in the second box of that week thinking that box was Monday. And if my date was wrong, my time might be wrong too.

 

I called the office, but of course didn’t get to talk to a human being. Modern customer service has devolved into shielding the service provider from pesky clients. I left a message asking whether I had the right time and date or if I’d missed my appointment completely. The call was not returned. No surprise. My calendar for September is a total mess, most of it due to ten medical / dental appointments. Not hearing back, I drove through downtown Berkeley and parked in the parking garage with its exorbitant fees and arrived in plenty of time for my hopefully 1:00 hopefully Tuesday appointment.

 

It turned out I’d been right all along. They apologized for the new computer system put in by their new management. I really didn’t want to hear it. It seems the entire medical world is installing new computer systems. Although this was one of the worst, I had a similar problem with my cardiologist in the not too distant past, and another recent one with the imaging service providing an ultrasound for my gastroenterologist. Adding insult to injury, as I was leaving, the credit card reader in the parking garage was broken and I had to pay cash. It briefly crossed my mind to tell the attendant I wasn’t carrying any cash, but sometimes I’m just too honest. I had to ask for a receipt (parking for a medical appointment is deductible.)