Doctors visiting Nocturnal Patients

[Rerun]

My Nephrologist thinks it is perfectly fine to come see us on April 29 and then again on May first.  "That was April and this is May"!!  That is not fair to us!  We deserve to see the doctor after labs are done for the month so we can go over it.  That is not what Medicare intended when they said you have to see your doctor once a month.  That is cheating.  it can be 55 days between visits.  The day people see her more, but we get cheated.  Not that she has anything enlightening to say, but we pay for her services.  It just isn't right IMO.  We can't call her and she won't call us.  She will tell the day staff who will tell the night staff who tells us.  Well, you can imagine how well that works.  NOT  She is just damn worthless.

  

[Charlie B53]

Wonder what responce you would get to a letter like this sent to CMS?

Of course that may well P.O. the Dr and make things very awkward for you.

Perhaps a suggestion that billing for 'visits' be dated at least two weeks apart?

[Paul]

I've not had this problem, but when I was in hospital they used to do obs (blood pressure etc.) every four hours, including the middle of the night. I gave the nurse a long lecture on how I had very high blood pressure, how it was killing my kidneys (this was about a year before I started dialysis), medically I desperately needed to keep blood pressure as low as possible, and one really bad thing to do with someone in that condition was to wake them in the middle of the night as that raised the blood pressure. So, if she took my blood pressure now it would be high, and it would be HER FAULT it was so high, so by waking me in the night she was killing the patient.

That was the last time they woke me in the night.

About a month later I was transferred to a different hospital (not, surprisingly, because I was a pain in the ass, but because that would get me better "after hospital care" from my local council). They tried the same "middle of the night obs" trick, but when they woke me I was too tired to give the long lecture again, so I simply turned to the nurse and said "F*** off." It was just as effective.

Moral of the story (as I have said before): If you are firm with the medical staff they treat you well, if you let them walk all over you, they will.

Cannot guarantee that some of the nurses did not spit in my tea though.

[Jean]

Rerun, I know you would not tell a nurse to Puck off, so if you mention it to her, then if you get no positive response, perhaps a very nice and polite but firm letter to a higher up, whoever they may be. Good luck, I know you can do this.