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A glimpse into a simple doctor’s visit can send one into a frenzy.

By Darla Bartos

I returned the other day from getting prescriptions at the local pharmacy to hear an automated voice message from my doctor’s office detailing expectations for my next visit. I was to arrive fifteen minutes early to an already early appointment. And if I were late, just know that they would reschedule me. Need I tell you how long it took me to acquire this appointment?
Currently I am living in Littleton, and my doctor’s office is in Aurora, at least 25 miles away. Let us not even talk about the anticipated rush hour of early morning traffic, which is always bumper-to-bumper at several points.
Plus, I have to make this appointment. Somehow I forgot to schedule the every six month appointment and am now rushing against the clock to make it before a year has gone by. The message continued to detail all the info I needed and it, of course, included payment, necessary cards, etc. etc. Didn’t doctors once care for patients? I mean, care for patients.
But this doctor’s visit concerns my getting my necessary meds. Need I say more? Pressure, pressure.
The message wasmade more aggravating by another recent incident.
I accompanied my grown daughter to a recent trip to another doctor, also in Aurora. We scheduled it around my granddaughter being in preschool and navigated through the noon rush hour traffic, finally arriving a few minutes early – which I taught all my children to do, by the way.  Then we stood there amazed as they off handedly told us the news.
The specialist had an emergency. He couldn’t be there. They were so sorry. We needed to make another appointment.
My daughter had just moved, they did not have her correct phone number and couldn’t get hold of her.
The extra step, to call the doctor who had referred her, was not taken. Of course, how could we have possibly expected this courtesy in this modern world we live in? Would it have been so difficult for them to merely think to call that number to see if that physician an updated number?
The nearly one-hour trip was wasted: our time, two-hour round trip, our gas. But, here’s the stinger.
Their policy was that if she missed the appointment, we owed them $50.
We waited to see if they offered us $50. And you know the answer to that. We are still waiting.
It reminded me of years ago when the doctors’ offices over booked. And then we patients had to wait for nearly an hour for a simple visit. Oh, wait, it’s still that way. Merely an oversight on my part.