Baltimore Health Examiner

Patient Frustration: the case of the impenetrable paperwork.

My friend's daughter got hurt at a picnic today. 

Trampoline.  Smashed knee.  Tears.  You get the picture.

The little girl needed an Xray and I thought I could grease the wheels and save my friend from hours of waiting in the ER.  I had my radiologist husband with me and my prescription pad in my purse, so we concocted the brilliant idea of accompanying her to the radiology department at our local hospital.  We would use our magic doctor powers to get her in and out in record time.  This little girl had a medical doctor and a radiologist by her side.  How much better could it get?

You might be surprised.

We called the hospital to be sure they accepted her insurance.  No one knew.  While I was on hold hell waiting for a person who never came back, my friend tried to get answers from her insurance company.  Surely they would know.   They didn’t.  We finally hung up, questions unanswered, as we pulled up to the hospital doors.

The sole check-in person was with another patient but there was no one else ahead of us.  We thought we’d be in and out in 20 minutes.  Thirty-five minutes later we were still waiting to see the admissions lady.  Sixty minutes later my friend was answering countless questions and the kids were getting antsy.  Ninety minutes later we had yet to make it past the paper work and onto the medical part of this adventure.  When we finally made it to the back, the Xray itself took 5 minutes, and it took my husband another 5 minutes to determine that the knee wasn’t broken.

Perhaps you aren’t sympathetic that we, doctors, had no more influence over the frustrating process of seeking medical care than you would have.  I understand.

This experience gave me insight into the insane medical landscape that we all navigate.  My husband and I, both doctors on staff at the very hospital that we were visiting, couldn’t get past the paperwork.  We were stymied by it.  We had the patient.  We had the doctor’s order.  We had  the radiology technicians waiting expectantly for us.  We had the radiologist ready to interpret the films.  Yet we couldn’t get past the intake lady.

Does this make sense?

Shouldn’t we be more concerned with medical care than paperwork?

The healthcare system has lost its mind.  We get so invested in insurance ID numbers and pre-authorizations and computer data entry that actual medical care almost seems irrelevant.  The patient may have collapsed from exhaustion waiting for someone to attend to his health… but at least the HIPAA forms have been filled out.


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