A positive message about doctors' office staff

Might as well start out positive because I'm sure there will be plenty of negative as this blog progresses, especially as it relates to the doctor-office experience.

Juggling a full-time job and a full-time illness makes for tricky scheduling sometimes. Aside from getting home in time to take medicine (and I'm not talking about pills here), getting chores and errands done during the few hours when you feel good enough to get them in, and trying to put in face time with friends and family so they don't think you're antisocial, there's the very troubling appointment-test-followup trifecta:

• You see the doctor; she suggests a test (day 1). 
• You go to take the test at a different location with a different staff (day 2). 
• You go back to the doctor so she can read you the results (day 3). 

So that's three days you may have to take off from work, three copays and three trips to waiting rooms. Zzzz.

You'd think that would equal three calls to the offices to schedule these appointments, right? No. Suddenly your job is holding an event and you have to be there. A friend you haven't made time to see in months wants to meet for coffee. A totally different doctor's office calls and cancels an appointment you've had set up for five months and has taken the liberty of rescheduling it for you during your test appointment.

You try to work with them but the doctor's only in on Thursday mornings—and that's it. Not including the three weeks he's off in July, August, November, January, and March. So you change your test appointment, but then your prescribing doctor decides she's on an emergency trip to an undisclosed location for four weeks and your matter could be pressing, so you should really get in ASAP. Which means rescheduling the appointment for earlier. But when you call, the only available day is the same one the other doctor re-scheduled you for. So you have to call that doctor back and beg to bump someone else. They squeeze you in on a day you were supposed to meet the friend you haven't seen in months for coffee.

So now you're up to about six calls and an angry friend, and you're not even settled yet. Everything's dependent upon the answer to something else.

Did I say there was a positive message here? Oh right ... the positive part COULD be: the office receptionist.

I won't sugarcoat it: Sometimes you will not find someone easy to work with. Take, for instance, my general doctor's secretary. She sounds pissed before you've even said a word. So it's a HUGE relief when you get someone who understands your situation.

If they're good, they will not let their voice waver with the annoyance they may or may not feel hearing from you for the umpteenth time that day. They will express their understanding. They'll say call back if you need to change it again. They'll repeat to you what you need to do for your test because now you're so frazzled you've forgotten who said what to you about which day and at what time. They'll offer to call other offices for you or to fax records over. These people are rare, and they are a find.

If you can manage to find one of these people while enduring the trifecta, you're golden. If not ... you may need to rethink that test. It's just your health, right?