Meeting our New Family Doctor

This morning, bright and early at 8:15 a.m., Mark and I headed out for our appointments with our new family doctor. We picked an office that is very close to our house, in fact it's in the same shopping area as our Wal Mart and Starbucks. There is nothing more convenient. I also picked it because they took both CIGNA and Blue Cross/Blue Shield since Mark has both.

Our first impressions were nice. The building is very easy to get to and has plenty of parking. The waiting room is HUGE and very clean. Of course, we expected to fill out a lot of forms, and we were not disappointed. OY! I was still filling them out while I was in the exam room and answering questions for the nurse to input to the computer.

As the visit continued, however, things went a little downhill. First, our records from MD had not arrived. This is not the fault of the new people, but it was irritating. We had requested them to be sent on January 6. We also each paid $75 to have this done. When we got home, we called the MD doctor's office and were directed to call the Customer Service number of the company that handled the record shipping. We were stunned to learn that they had been shipped (late January for Mark's, early February for mine) but had been returned by the post office as undeliverable. Then they shredded them. Case closed. What??? They don't save them and try again? They don't call either the sending or receiving doctor's office to inquire? They don't inform US, the customer who PAID them for this service? Unbelievable. We ascertained that they did ship them to the correct address, so we have no explanation for why they were returned. We asked if they would ship them to us personally and we would hand deliver them, but that would require filling out new paperwork and starting over, and paying over. They offered to ship them out again at no cost to the same address, so that's what we are trying now. We'll follow up with them in a few weeks to see if it worked this time. It's mind-boggling to me that the cancer center and surgeon's office in MD both managed to send out records for free that actually arrived, yet this place that charges $75 can't get it done. Oh, well...if at first you don't succeed...As our friend John said, then parachuting is not for you.

The next thing that went a little awry was the doctor himself. Mark and I went in separately, but we had the same exact impression: he's a cold fish with no personality. He spent my visit tap, tap, tapping in his computer, leaning against the counter with his head down. He mumbled a lot, sometimes in Spanish. I had to ask him to repeat his question to me at least two different times. The only exam I got was listening to the lungs and heart. He told me I should weigh 115 and should eat 1100 calories a day. OMG, that weight is so unrealistic for me I almost laughed out loud when he said it. I might have weighed that in the sixth grade! I said, "Wait a minute. Listen to my story." He did listen and then said I could do 1200 calories since I told him I usually aimed for between 1200 and 1500. At least he did say I was doing OK after he heard my story. He wrote prescriptions for all my drugs so that I could get them on Express Scripts by mail, wrote a lab slip to get a complete blood work up of sugar, cholesterol, CBC, plus a urinalysis and other things, and told me to come back for a follow up in two months. His last words to me were, "You're a survivor now." I actually did appreciate that!

Mark also thought he had little personality, but at least he got a bit of an exam. He got a prostate check and an EKG, probably because he's a man who's had a heart problem. He also was told to go on a low sodium diet for his blood pressure, which was high in the office. The doctor told him he did not need a separate cardiologist or separate endocrinologist, like he did in MD. I don't think Mark appreciated that because he liked those guys and was hoping to find good ones down here. This doctor is an internist, so he told Mark that he could take care of all his issues. We shall see.

We got home at 11:45! It was a long morning.

The REALLY good news is that our furniture from IKEA got delivered promptly at 1 p.m. as promised! They are supposed to plop everything into one spot, but the two nice young guys actually put the couch in the right spot and dropped the dresser boxes in the bedroom and the DVD tower boxes in the family room. Mark tipped them generously for this extra effort. While I head to radiation in a little bit, he's going to try to put one of the DVD towers together. I hope it's not too frustrating. The sofa got placed backwards and is shrink-wrapped in plastic and cardboard, but that shouldn't be too hard to fix later. I'm excited about the new stuff!