The Perfect Storm

It's like God reached down his hand from heaven and said, "Thou shalt not go here." Yeah, it was that bad. I've never had such terrible customer service in my life, and this was from a hospital.

I'm not saying that St. Mark's is horrible all the way around. I'm saying that my brief encounter with them was a combination of terrible experiences.

Experience 1 - Switched Appointments
It kind of started when we weren't told before we arrived that we couldn't meet with Dr. Kawande and were switched to Dr. Schorlemmer instead. It was okay. I would have made the same choice not to wait an additional 3 weeks to see Dr. Kawande, but I would have liked to make that choice before driving the 45 minutes to get to the appointment. The office staff knew the day before when they made the switch; why didn't they inform me?

Experience 2 - Registration Fiascos
So I take my orders from Dr. Schorlemmer's office over to the registration desk at the hospital. I'm standing at the desk about 8 minutes while the twenty-something girl looks over my paperwork and keeps checking it against her computer. Finally, she involves the other woman sitting at the registration desk. She too examines the paperwork and checks the computer. After involving one more person from the back, they pronounce that all the paperwork seems to be in order.

"Please take all of this paperwork and proceed through the next door on your right."

Really? That's all it took to get registered. Cool. Now on to radiation, I guess. Whoops! Not so fast.

The next door is labeled "Registration." So what was that desk I was just standing at for 8 minutes? And why is it labeled Registration also?

I take a seat in a very full room. In fact, it's so full, there are no chairs left. So I sit at the only exposed desk in the room and wait. And wait. And wait.

There are about six desks that are sectioned off and numbered. The process involves waiting for someone at one of the desks to call your name so that you can then register. After waiting about 15 minutes and not seeing much turnover in the amount of people waiting, I start up a conversation with some of the people that are obviously frustrated from all of the waiting. "How long have you been here? How many people have been registered in that time?"

We eventually figure out that there are only two people or two desks that are available for registration. And they are both really slow at the process.

After waiting about 30 minutes, they open up another registration desk and I get called. Yahoo!

The lady who is helping me doesn't seem to know her job, however. After staring at my paperwork and her computer for a long time (about another 8 minutes), she suddenly gets up and leaves without saying anything to me.

Am I done? Am I just supposed to wait? Where did she go?

She's gone at least 4 minutes, when I notice another employee walking by and call out to her. "Ma'am, do you know you was helping me at this desk? She got up and left about five minutes ago, but I don't know where she went or what she's doing or if I'm finished or not."

She tells me her name was Jessica and she'll go look for her and figure out what's going on.

Another 1-2 minutes and Jessica comes back in huff. Apparently, that was her manager that I spoke to, and Jessica is not happy about being called out for just abadoning me at her registration station without any communication.

     "Your paperwork isn't right. You're missing orders, so I'm going to have to fix it for you." She self-righteously proclaims.
     "Interesting, because I stood at the front registration counter for 8 minutes while 3 different clerks reviewed my paperwork and finally pronounced it complete." I offer.
     "Well. It's not. I have to call your doctor now and get it fixed."

Whatever! At this point, I've been at registration for about an hour, and my appointment is now overdue by at least 30 minutes.

     "My paperwork says I'm supposed to have started a test about 45 minutes ago. Is there anything we can do to hurry this process along? At this rate, I'm going to be late for my second test, which is scheduled in another 15 minutes."
     "Well, they should have told you to come early to register first."
     " I did. I deliberately came 15 minutes early so that everything would go smoothly, but I've been waiting at registration now for an hour and am now late for my test. Is there any way you can call them and let them know that I was here on time and it's the registration department that's running behind?"
    "No ma'am. But I just need to fix these orders and then print your stickers. You have another appointment today?"
    "Yes. That's what those orders that you keep looking at say. You don't show in the computer that I have another test scheduled at 2:30?"
     "Oh. Yes I do. You'll have to come back here after your first test to register for your second test."
     "What? You can't register me for both if I'm sitting here now and they're scheduled one after the other?"
     "No. And you'll have to have your ID and insurance information with you."
     "Okay. Let's call over your supervisor again because surely there's something we could do differently to expedite this entire process."

At that, she begins to back down a little bit.

    "Well, I suppose I could print your stickers for both procedures at the same time."
    "Stickers? What stickers?"
    "Each procedure needs stickers so they can label your results."
    "Okay. So print me 10 stickers instead of 5 and please let me be on my way."
    "It's not that simple, ma'am."

Actually, I'm sure it is. I've never been treated like this at any other hospital (and I've been to a bunch of different ones). Something is seriously broken here.

Finally, after another 5-10 minutes, she hands me some forms and tells me to wait just a moment while she prints off the stickers.

Another 2 minutes goes by while she prints off two entire sheets of about 30 stickers each. Really?

Then she announces, as if she's making the biggest sacrifice ever to assist me, "I'll personally bring the stickers for your second procedure down to radiology myself when they print off, so that you're not any later for your first procedure."
     "How many stickers do they need? You've just handed me two entire sheets of about 60 stickers total." My bewilderment is written all over my face.
    Again, in a big huff, she states, "And they'll need every single one of them for your first procedure."

If they were doing a bunch of biopsies, maybe. But they don't need 60 stickers for a CT. Whatever. I'm through trying to reason with Jessica. I'm sorry for the next patient who has to deal with her because she obviously doesn't know her job or have any idea what customer service is supposed to be like!

I'm directed down a long hallway into the radiation reception area. When I get there, I notice a desk. However, there's no signs at the desk and no one's sitting there, so I take a seat. After about five minutes of waiting and reading a magazine, I look up to find someone now sitting at the desk and people lined up in front of it. I watch them for a few moments, and then call out "Am I supposed to register with you also?" Like my registration nightmares could get any worse at this point!

It turns out that she needs me to register also, so I haul everything up to her desk as well, including my 60 stickers.

I'm so late for my first appointment that they're going to switch the two tests and do the ultrasound of my caratid arteries first and the CT second. Whatever. That's fine with me. Like I chose to wait in registration for an hour.

After a very short two minute wait, the ultrasound technician comes and calls my name.

Whew! Finally, we're getting somewhere.

The ultrasound goes very smoothly, and the technician is wonderful. She's even empathetic about my experience with registration and tells me that I should fill out a comment card. She knows that the hospital has been trying to fix things with registration for a while now, and needs to know about how I was treated.

Experience 3 - No Port Flush
Because I was so late for my CT scan, they're squeezing me in between two scheduled appointments. No problem. CTs take about 5 minutes. So they get someone to access my port, inject the contrast, and we're good to go.

Except. . .I realize at home the next morning that everyone was in such a rush to get those CT scans done, they never flushed my port afterwards. It's a life threatening mistake. Crud. Now I'm scared. Luckily, I have another test scheduled at St. Mark's today, so I'll go early and make sure they flush my port.

Experience 4 - Stubborn PFT Technicians That Can't Accurately Figure Out My Height
So it's another 45 minute drive back to St. Mark's. After registering for the pulmonary function tests (which took only 12 minutes total!), I go back to the radiology registration desk and ask if I can talk to Carla in CT.

     "Is there a problem, ma'am?"
     "Yes, I was here yesterday for a CT scan. They accessed my port, but they never flushed it afterwards. It's a life threatening mistake," I say, not realizing how loud I'm talking because the entire waiting room lets out a collective gasp at my last sentence.

Carla appologizes over and over again. It's okay, I guess. I forgot about it too in all the hustle and bustle of the previous day and after all the hassle I had with registration.

Now it's time for the PFTs. An older gentleman calls my name, and I follow him back to his area.

First, the scale for a weight and height. The weight he announces seems accurate, but there's a problem with the height. Even after insisting that I take off my flat shoes and socks, stand barefoot with my back against the back of the scale, and pressing down on my head to ensure it's level and I don't have anything height-altering things hiding on my bald head, he announces that I'm 5'2.5" tall.

Huh? I've never been taller than 5'0" my whole life. And Dale likes to kid me that I haven't reached even 5' yet, that I'm more like 4'11.75" instead.

I ask Duane to measure my height again because he surely didn't get the right number. He's annoyed with me though, because I'm messing up his organized routine.

     "I'll do it again after the PFTs are over," he insists.
     But I'm the patient and he's there to help me, so I insist stronger, "I'm standing here, barefoot, now. I'm not stepping off until it's right."

Reluctantly, he comes over and tries again. This time, he announces that I've now magically shrunk down to 5'.5", which is closer but still not right.

"Fine. Can we try one more time after the PFTs?" I ask. "Something is still not right. I'll just stay in my barefeet during the tests."

The PFTs are relatively uneventful, except he tries to insist that I use albuterol halfway through. I explain to him that I was told that I shouldn't ever use it because it made my heart race past 150 bpm during the last PFTs done at Timpanogos Regional Hospital, and they told me never to use it again, and that heart rate is actually dangerous.

When I explain all this to him, he's pretty insistent that I use it anyway, that those other technicians didn't know what they were doing, and that 150 bpm isn't really a problem.

I'm not convinced. If he can't even accurately get my height, how can I trust him with my lungs?

He's not happy, but he says he'll record that I'm a non-compliant, stubborn patient.

Whatever! Let me out of here please.

Before I go, he tries my height once more and gets 5'1.5" this time. He's very particular about how I stand each time, so how does he get three different readings that are all so far apart. I can't figure it out and, obviously, he can't either, so he decides he'll record that I'm 5'.5" tall. Whatever!