Mysteries of the Universe

 

Pretty Flowers

 

In the last week and a half, I've been to the hospital for x-rays, seen an orthopedic surgeon, and gone to a physical therapist. Each of these people are in the same so-called medical network. The hospital is about five hundred yards from my primary care physician's office, the other two offices are in the exact same building. 

At each visit, when I walk into their office, the receptionist asks for my name, stares at the computer for a minute, and after a few clicks, asks me to confirm my date of birth, address and so on, indicating after each response that I've given them a correct answer.

What I want to know is, why, at each one of these places, am I having to fill out variations of the exact same three forms, asking me the exact same questions - what prescriptions am I taking? What is my medial history? What is my family's medical history? What are my allergies? And on and on and on. Why do they keep asking me this? Why is this not in their system?

A few years ago, I went through this with a different specialist, also in their network. When I went back for a follow-up a month later, the nurse practitioner asked me the exact same questions AGAIN. When I responded that I just went through this a month earlier, she didn't miss a beat. She just continued on. 

The only thing that seemed to get a reaction from her is when she got to the point of asking me about my medications, I could remember all of them - except for the one that was prescribed for me one month earlier by the doctor I was there to see. 

When I couldn't remember what the prescription was, Nurse Ratched replied with a sarcastic, "Well, that's helpful." 

I told her that "this very doctor is the one who prescribed it for me. I would think it would be in your system - but apparently your system doesn't work that way!" She stopped writing, glanced up at me for about three seconds - then started writing again. 

What she was writing, I can only guess.