Surgery has been delayed to 12/22

Dec 09, 2015

Due to some logistical errors of missing pieces needed for to get insurance approval, not of my doing, but rather of the office, my surgery had to be pushed back to Dec 22nd. I was rather crushed at being told it would be delayed, but I'm ok now. I love my surgeon or I would have changed offices by now. I do not like the surgery scheduler I had previously. I have been reassigned to another scheduler who seems to have her ball on a roll and I'm happy to be working with. The previous person treated me with disdain and like I was an inconvenience. My husband has had a totally different experience as has my coworker. In October, when my husband heard something the next day, but I waited a week until I called the office, I had told another office staff that I felt like I was being forgotten about. She told me that different scheduler do things differently. Then when I went in with my husband 2 weeks ago for his weigh-in and expressed to them then that I hadn't heard from the hospital so I took the initiative to call and was told that they hadn't gotten anything from the scheduler yet, I got the same response of each scheduler is different but was promised a call back that day. When I didn't get a call by 3pm, I called in. When I talked to my scheduler, told her my name, she immediately cut me off and said I'd hear something from the hospital 2 weeks prior to my appointment. I tried to explain that it was already 2 weeks prior the surgery and that they hadn't gotten anything from the office and she cut me off again and said it had been sent and I'd hear something from them with a date 2 weeks prior to my appointment. Then, yesterday I got a voicemail from the insurance lady at the office asking about blood work having been completed recently. When I called her back after calling my primary care doc to confirm the last date of my blood work since I really wasn't sure, she said that it was needed to process the pre-insurance authorization and that BCBS needs 15 days to authorize which would be pushing us out beyond the 17th. It was then that I chose my words very carefully as I was still at work and I didn't want to blow up at the wrong person and I laid everything out to her and explained to her how I had to make all the calls to find out everything and how when I called to ask questions based on what my husband's experience was compared to mine, I would be treated like crap and like I was an inconvenience or that I was asking someone to do their job. She then went to her manager to see what could be done and I am guessing this is where I got the new person that I'm working with that has been helpful and found a few other things missing (i.e. my pre-op clearance from my primary care that I did on 12/1 and my ekg). Also found out today that no one ever requested the results from my sleep apnea study that shows how severe my sleep apnea is to send to insurance for my approval. I think the thing that gets me the most is that someone should have caught this months ago. There should have been a checklist somewhere that someone should have known. Instead, I feel like I’m going through a factory of slice em and dice em to get my surgery. If I didn’t like my surgeon and didn’t have such high regard for him and hear such great things about him from other people, I really would not be staying with this office.

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