Not five minutes after I finished my happiness post yesterday, irony struck. My primary care doctor's office called to say he wouldn't refill my antidepressant because I hadn't been seen in the office since 2007. I reminded them of the spider bite and the cold in 2008, but apparently they'd forgotten about those.
They told me they wanted me to come in for a full physical and blood work, but oh, they don't take my insurance anymore. And so they could give me 14 days to find someone knew to manage my medication.
And then I said something like, "You know, it's not wise to tell someone on anxiety medication they have two weeks to find a new doctor during allergy season or they'll have to quit their meds cold turkey." BECAUSE IT MAKES PEOPLE ANXIOUS.
Ahem.
Then she said, "But the prescription ran out in January. Didn't you go off it then?" But no! I didn't! Because every month since January the pharmacy has called your office and you've refilled it! But of course you have no record of that!
I hung up and reflected for ten minutes on the stupidity of modern medicine.
I figured the doctor thing would work out, though, because I now live in the land of hospitals on every corner. First, I tried to sign on to my insurance company's web site. I got an error message saying something about a system failure.
Then I called the number on the back of the card. After a five-minute phone tree, a guy gave me three doctors' numbers.
- Doctor 1 -- No new patients
- Doctor 2 -- This was a hospice number. They only treat the terminally ill.
- Doctor 3 -- Only treating allergy patients right now
I called back, went through the phone tree again. This time I got five numbers, just to be safe.
- Doctor 4 -- Disconnected number
- Doctor 5 -- Disconnected number
- Doctor 6 -- Accepting new patients and held open two appointments a week for new patients -- would I like to come in on Monday? Yes, yes I would!
So, that only took two hours out of my day.
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