Radio won't happen this week... or perhaps for the rest of 2021 (update: Radio BACK, but I had terrible ER visit riddled with incompetence)

[Sloppy Joe]

Unlike a struggling mom and pop restaurant you can ghost for over a year and then strong arm into swapping out a healthy side option for gout inducing fries, hospitals are well equipped to dealing with disgruntled patients, many of whom actually come with legitimate gripes.

Always the chance you run into the person who can push a button just to get you the fuck away but you're setting yourself up for an even bigger cucking than was already delivered to you.

Better come heavy with a letter from your psychiatrist documenting the impact from the fallout of this situation.

Your trolling is tiresome.

I have proof that the ER didn't ask for a list of my meds during my visit, and committed malpractice by double-prescribing what I was already on. Only reason I'm not suing their ass is because I was smart enough not to follow their retarded advice, so I have no damages other than time wasted.

Is that standard care in Porltand, or nah?

I don't know, I'm healthy and haven't been to the ER.

You already got slapped the fuck down once after an ER 'false alarm'. Might just chalk this one up to the anxiety ramping up and move on.

[Dan Druff]

Your trolling is tiresome.

I have proof that the ER didn't ask for a list of my meds during my visit, and committed malpractice by double-prescribing what I was already on. Only reason I'm not suing their ass is because I was smart enough not to follow their retarded advice, so I have no damages other than time wasted.

Is that standard care in Porltand, or nah?

I don't know, I'm healthy and haven't been to the ER.

You already got slapped the fuck down once after an ER 'false alarm'. Might just chalk this one up to the anxiety ramping up and move on.

You're like 15 years younger than me. My only time in the ER by age 34 was when I broke my arm skiing as a teenager.

My only goal here is not to have to pay for this shit "care" which was riddled with incompetence. Principle of the matter and all.

If you're cool with an ER which doesn't check which meds you're on, then RIP soon enough.

[BetCheckBet]

How much is your time worth druff?

Ftr I’m surprised you even got legible er notes. But if you value your sanity you really got to look at what you are doing.

At some point you’ve got to ask yourself just how tied you are to doing things out of principle and what sort of impact that is having on your life.

[Jayjami]

Druff obsesses over shit like this and still wonders why he suffers from depression.

I would suffer from depression if I paid the bill for such bullshit "care".

Couldn't live with that.

Don’t sweat the small shit dude. You don’t have to fight every battle that comes your way. Sometimes people are just incompetent. Don’t pay the bill. They’ll eat the cost. Move on. BTW, malpractice cases are virtually impossible to win in California. In all my years as an ambulance chaser, I never took a single one.

[Dan Druff]

How much is your time worth druff?

Ftr I’m surprised you even got legible er notes. But if you value your sanity you really got to look at what you are doing.

At some point you’ve got to ask yourself just how tied you are to doing things out of principle and what sort of impact that is having on your life.

Notes were online.

I just forgot about this for awhile and decided to finally figure out how to find them.

Wasn't very hard.

[Dan Druff]

Update:

Nobody called me, so I called again today and asked who was the supervisor of this Patient Safety coordinator. Again the person on the phone said, "I'm not sure, I'll look into it, and ask that person to call you, whoever it is."

Exactly same bullshit I was given 10 days ago. This time I refused and said I wanted a name now, even if it's not the direct supervisor of that coordinator. I said I just wanted someone in upper management.

Well, lo and behold, she magically found the direct supervisor of that coordinator, and transferred me to her extension.

Got a call back this afternoon, told the whole story. This woman seemed a lot nicer than that coordinator woman, who kinda seemed bitchy from the start. I made it very clear I wasn't looking for any money, and simply wanted the patient portion (just a few hundred bucks) to be wiped. I said I would sign a paper indicating that the matter was closed, if they so desired.

Anyway, she said she would look into it, but she said that she would ask the ER "where they were with the investigation", which of course would yield the same complete bullshit answers from last time. I told her that I needed this to be looked into a second time, with the knowledge that I have the smoking gun proof from their own records that basically confirm they forgot to ask about my meds.

I said that I just want some honesty here, and just don't want to have to pay for a visit which was completely useless and riddled with incompetence. I finished by saying, "I don't want to gain from this situation, but I also don't want to lose. I just want to walk away where both sides pay each other nothing." I also noted that I paid by bill in full in my two past visits there, so I'm not one of those deadbeats trying to get out of hospital bills.

She said she understood and would get back to me. Also threw in a pretty detailed complaint about that patient safety coordinator woman, because she was awful and dishonest. That's her direct boss, so I hope she gets in trouble for this shit. I won't hold my breath though.

I'm more optimistic about the result now. I think there's a decent chance they will look into it, see I'm right, and just wipe of the patient responsibility. I guess we will see. They're aware my next stop is a complaint to the state, if they won't deal with me fairly, but I said it in a more cordial manner than that.

[dwai]

Update:

Nobody called me, so I called again today and asked who was the supervisor of this Patient Safety coordinator. Again the person on the phone said, "I'm not sure, I'll look into it, and ask that person to call you, whoever it is."

Exactly same bullshit I was given 10 days ago. This time I refused and said I wanted a name now, even if it's not the direct supervisor of that coordinator. I said I just wanted someone in upper management.

Well, lo and behold, she magically found the direct supervisor of that coordinator, and transferred me to her extension.

Got a call back this afternoon, told the whole story. This woman seemed a lot nicer than that coordinator woman, who kinda seemed bitchy from the start. I made it very clear I wasn't looking for any money, and simply wanted the patient portion (just a few hundred bucks) to be wiped. I said I would sign a paper indicating that the matter was closed, if they so desired.

Anyway, she said she would look into it, but she said that she would ask the ER "where they were with the investigation", which of course would yield the same complete bullshit answers from last time. I told her that I needed this to be looked into a second time, with the knowledge that I have the smoking gun proof from their own records that basically confirm they forgot to ask about my meds.

I said that I just want some honesty here, and just don't want to have to pay for a visit which was completely useless and riddled with incompetence. I finished by saying, "I don't want to gain from this situation, but I also don't want to lose. I just want to walk away where both sides pay each other nothing." I also noted that I paid by bill in full in my two past visits there, so I'm not one of those deadbeats trying to get out of hospital bills.

She said she understood and would get back to me. Also threw in a pretty detailed complaint about that patient safety coordinator woman, because she was awful and dishonest. That's her direct boss, so I hope she gets in trouble for this shit. I won't hold my breath though.

I'm more optimistic about the result now. I think there's a decent chance they will look into it, see I'm right, and just wipe of the patient responsibility. I guess we will see. They're aware my next stop is a complaint to the state, if they won't deal with me fairly, but I said it in a more cordial manner than that.

she was just trying to get off the phone bro she doesn't care about your complaints, just getting you out of HER hair

[Dan Druff]

Update:

Nobody called me, so I called again today and asked who was the supervisor of this Patient Safety coordinator. Again the person on the phone said, "I'm not sure, I'll look into it, and ask that person to call you, whoever it is."

Exactly same bullshit I was given 10 days ago. This time I refused and said I wanted a name now, even if it's not the direct supervisor of that coordinator. I said I just wanted someone in upper management.

Well, lo and behold, she magically found the direct supervisor of that coordinator, and transferred me to her extension.

Got a call back this afternoon, told the whole story. This woman seemed a lot nicer than that coordinator woman, who kinda seemed bitchy from the start. I made it very clear I wasn't looking for any money, and simply wanted the patient portion (just a few hundred bucks) to be wiped. I said I would sign a paper indicating that the matter was closed, if they so desired.

Anyway, she said she would look into it, but she said that she would ask the ER "where they were with the investigation", which of course would yield the same complete bullshit answers from last time. I told her that I needed this to be looked into a second time, with the knowledge that I have the smoking gun proof from their own records that basically confirm they forgot to ask about my meds.

I said that I just want some honesty here, and just don't want to have to pay for a visit which was completely useless and riddled with incompetence. I finished by saying, "I don't want to gain from this situation, but I also don't want to lose. I just want to walk away where both sides pay each other nothing." I also noted that I paid by bill in full in my two past visits there, so I'm not one of those deadbeats trying to get out of hospital bills.

She said she understood and would get back to me. Also threw in a pretty detailed complaint about that patient safety coordinator woman, because she was awful and dishonest. That's her direct boss, so I hope she gets in trouble for this shit. I won't hold my breath though.

I'm more optimistic about the result now. I think there's a decent chance they will look into it, see I'm right, and just wipe of the patient responsibility. I guess we will see. They're aware my next stop is a complaint to the state, if they won't deal with me fairly, but I said it in a more cordial manner than that.

she was just trying to get off the phone bro she doesn't care about your complaints, just getting you out of HER hair

Well I'm gonna get a response of some kind, so we will see.

[dwai]

she was just trying to get off the phone bro she doesn't care about your complaints, just getting you out of HER hair

Well I'm gonna get a response of some kind, so we will see.

I admire your determination

[Dan Druff]

Well I'm gonna get a response of some kind, so we will see.

I admire your determination

This isn't just for the principle.

While I'm willing to tolerate a collections effort and a credit hit, I'd also prefer this doesn't happen. So I'd much prefer they just wipe off my portion of the bill, and both sides walk away, rather than taking the credit hit over this. The credit hit won't really hurt me (as I explained before), but I'd still prefer not to have it happen if I can avoid it.

[Sloppy Joe]

I admire your determination

This isn't just for the principle.

While I'm willing to tolerate a collections effort and a credit hit, I'd also prefer this doesn't happen. So I'd much prefer they just wipe off my portion of the bill, and both sides walk away, rather than taking the credit hit over this. The credit hit won't really hurt me (as I explained before), but I'd still prefer not to have it happen if I can avoid it.

Did you ever determine what got you there?

[Dan Druff]

This isn't just for the principle.

While I'm willing to tolerate a collections effort and a credit hit, I'd also prefer this doesn't happen. So I'd much prefer they just wipe off my portion of the bill, and both sides walk away, rather than taking the credit hit over this. The credit hit won't really hurt me (as I explained before), but I'd still prefer not to have it happen if I can avoid it.

Did you ever determine what got you there?

.

No.

I never determined what caused the pain and swelling in my foot in December, to where I couldn't walk for 2 days. If you remember, about 4 days after it started (and after I was barely able to walk again), BOTH feet swelled up, and my hands started tingling, so being about 50 years old, I got concerned it could be a cardiac issue. I thought it probably wasn't, but I didn't want to wait until Monday to go to the doctor about it, since it was Saturday night at the time.

The high blood pressure I had that night was probably from anxiety, but I would have still gone to the ER even if the BP was normal. I realized at the time that anxiety over the situation was probably causing that BP spike.

I've had the pain in the same foot two other times since then (once in January, the other about a week ago), but it never got to where I couldn't walk, and it got better a lot faster. Right now it feels and looks 100% normal. The MRI I got in December (not at the hospital -- with a regular doctor a few days after the ER visit) showed there was a ton of inflammation in there, but nobody could figure out why.

I've been unable to connect anything I'm doing to this problem coming on. The closest I've come was noticing that all three times this has happened, it was preceded by an abrupt drop in humidity outside. Maybe that means something, maybe just a coincidence.

I'm not that concerned at this point. I'd like to solve it, but provided it doesn't get again to where I can't walk, I can live with these flare ups.

[Dan Druff]

BUMP

Major update.

dwai was right. The supervisor of the "Patient Safety" manager was indeed just trying to get me off the phone. Despite a promise to call me back within a few days, but weeks went by, and I got no call.

I called and left her a message. No return call to me.

I called again the following week and left another message. Again, no return call.

I called on Wednesday and spoke to someone else in administration, and explained what was happening. I told them that I wasn't dropping the matter, and reiterated that their own patient records provide the smoking gun proof that they never checked my meds, and then double-prescribed what I was already on.

I told them that it was essential I get the promised call back, or otherwise I would take these complaints to "the state, the local media, and an attorney." I repeated that I wasn't looking for a penny in compensation, and simply wanted my $350 bill wiped. I told them that I'd be willing to sign any document promising this, if they wanted.

I was promised a phone call on Thursday, from either that woman I last talked to, or someone above her.

Thursday passed, and it got to 3:30pm. Nothing. Of course.

I decided to try a longshot phone call to that woman, just in case she'd answer the phone. Surprisingly, she did. I told her who I was, and she claimed to be on an "important phone call", and would call me back "in 15 or 20 minutes". I told her that she failed to call me back in early February as promised, and also ignored several messages from me since, so I was skeptical. She promised "15-20 minutes, I will definitely call you".

An hour passed. No call. Sigh.

I called back one more time and left a message stating that I was "very dsiappointed" that I didn't get the call back as promised, and that this was my "last call' before taking legal action and bringing this whole situation to local media.

My phone then rang 10 minutes later. It was that Patient Safety Coordinator again -- the one who hung up on me in December, and refused to do a real investigation! Oh no!

Continued next post...

[Dan Druff]

However, this Patient Safety woman had a different tone than when we last spoke in December. Back then, she was very arrogant and bitchy, and basically told me to kick rocks, and refused to answer about the meds. When I pressed why she didn't investigate the meds situation, she said, "This matter is closed", and hung up on me.

This time, she sounded much more softspoken and docile. I was already a lot more optimistic.

However, I still wanted to give her a piece of my mind about what occurred in December. I asked why she hung up on me after refusing to do a proper investigation. I asked why a Patient Safety manager would refuse to investigate why their ER didn't check a patient's meds -- a very important and standard step for every patient at every office everywere. I asked why I was hung up on when I simply wanted her to look into that.

She replied, "That's all in the past, I'm calling you to talk about the present. Let's not concern ourselves with past conversations."




She then went on to tell me that she was asked by her boss to call me, and that she's opening a "re-investigation" of my visit. Of course, I asked how this "re-investigation" would be any different than the first one, which was clearly reverse-engineered to make it look like I got satisfactory care.

She said, "We're going to look very carefully at everything at this time. In fact, you state now that your primary concern was the meds. We will look into that now."

I reminded her that it was my primary concern in December, and she even repeated it back to me. She said that it was a "miscommunication", and that she just didn't understand I was complaining about that. I told her that was BS, and asked how it was a "miscommunication" that she hung up on me and refused to investigate it.

Of course, she had no answer and kept wanting me to just give her a chance to do a second investigation.

I agreed, but told her that "there's no way I will accept anything short of a complete removal of the $350 I owe". I said that "even a 99% discount won't be satisfactory", but noted that at the same time, I wasn't looking for any compensation from them. Again, I offered to sign any document promising that I would not attempt to ask for any payments going forward, once we come to terms here.

She promised me a call back on Monday afternoon.



However, today she called me, and in fact texted me when I didn't answer the phone.

I got a hold of her at 4:30pm, and she told me that, "upper management reviewed your case, and it was decided to waive the $350 you owe." I then asked about the other small bills I got from blood tests and other shit done while I was there, and how I wanted that covered, too. She said that they couldn't do that, as these are third party companies, but they've waived the $350 I owe them "as a courtesy". She made sure to mention that they "didn't see anything wrong, but we're doing it as a courtesy." Yeah right.

So I've decided to just accept this, pay the small blood test bills and whatever, and just be done. The bulk of what I owed -- the ER admission fee of $350 -- is now off the books.

So what do I think happened here? Summary in next post.

[Dan Druff]

I believe I came to a shitty ER at an even shittier time -- Saturday night at 1:30am, and I got the worst of the worst people on staff.

Somehow they made the boneheaded mistake of forgetting to ask about my current meds. I don't think it was a conscious decision to copy-paste my March 2020 meds into the system as current. It probably defaults to that, until they change it.

The doctor (who was only a DO, not an MD) assigned my case to the PA, when he didn't deem my situation to be serious.

Recall I kept asking for them to test my uric acid -- something they refused the entire way, but oddly did despite claiming they were outright refusing my request. (I only found this out weeks later that it was done.)

The PA, who I hadn't met yet, probably thought I was a combative asshole for repeatedly demanding the uric acid thing, and didn't really want to see me. She went over my test results on her own, and between the foot swelling and the low potassium, prescribed both potassium and diuretic pills, of course not having the info that I was already on them.

Once I told the nurse I was already on these, and asked to speak to the PA, she still didn't want to come out, not really wanting to deal with me. She hid in the back, told the nurse to tell me to "take them anyway", (erroneously) believing that doubling up wouldn't do me any harm.

When I reported the whole mess to the Patient Safety manager a few days later, she investigated and realized that they really did fuck up the meds thing, but of course didn't want to admit it. So she reverse-engineered a story around why everything happened the way it did, and hoped I'd go away. When I wouldn't accept it, she got flustered, hung up on me, and closed the case.

When I tracked down her boss, she was probably receptive during the call, but upon seeing that the hospital really did fuck up (plus I didn't have any actual damages they had to worry about), she probably decided to just ignore me and hope I'd give up.

When I persistently called and clearly wasn't letting this go, she assigned her underling -- that original Patient Safety manager -- to take this to upper management for permission to just wipe the damn $350 without admitting wrondoing, and letting this die. Permission was given, and here we are.



You might wonder why I put so much effort into saving $350. It was because I was so pissed about how I was treated there -- a combination of incompetence and arrogance -- that I refuse to pay them for this malpratice-ridden "care". It wasn't worth my time to save the $350, but I'm very glad I did it, because they didn't deserve my money for all this fail. Plus, they got paid thousands by the insurance, which I can't control.

Anyway, this does show how flawed the entire "patient safety" process is at these hospitals. They are only interested in covering their ass and reverse engineering stories to fit their narrative, rather than doing any real investigation. It's amazing that, despite my being clear that all I wanted was the $350 wiped off my account -- and that I was willing to sign a document promising it -- they still put so much effort into pushing back at me. It took my obtaining of the smoking gun evidence of their fuckup AND tons of follow-up phone calls to finally get this done.

I won't be going back to this place. There's another ER about the same distance from where I live, so I'll be going to that one next time.

The end.

[turdzilla]

Have you been added to the medical equivalent of a No Fly List?

[PositiveVariance]

Have you been added to the medical equivalent of a No Fly List?

Yeah, a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) lol

[Sloppy Joe]

So you drew a line in the sand to not pay a cent and are still shelling out for those blood tests and are still riddled with gout.

What a win.

[Dan Druff]

So you drew a line in the sand to not pay a cent and are still shelling out for those blood tests and are still riddled with gout.

What a win.

I'm paying for blood tests done by outside labs which have nothing to do with this fail. I'm paying the hospital zero point zero.

Had I taken the expert medical advice from that night, I'd be riddled with far worse gout. You can't walk away with a "win" in a situation like this, but being smart enough to refuse incorrect medical advice and then getting out of paying the bill is as close as you can get to a win.

I realize that the Portland soy way to handle things is to follow what any doctor says like a drone, and then fork over whatever money they ask for. Or if you're feeling really rebellious, you just don't pay and take the credit hit. I'll keep these in mind for next time.

[Dan Druff]

Have you been added to the medical equivalent of a No Fly List?

Actually the previous time I was in the ER, there was some crazy woman next to me who was refusing the simplest requests, and screaming at the top of her lungs.

"FUCK YOU!!!"

"FUCK THIS HOSPITAL!!!"

"YOU'RE ALL TRYING TO KILL ME!"

I felt legit bad for the staff having to deal with crazies like this every day, and being unable by law to refuse to treat them.

Compared to patients like that, I was a model customer.