I'm taking a break from Film Vault Tuesday this week... I spent all day with my wife going from Doctors office to Doctors office only to end up right where I wanted to go in the first place: The Emergency Room... It took them 8 hours and many unnecessary tests for them to figure out what the very first doctor said, "She needs to see a specialist..."
The specialist needs a referral from the Primary "Care" Doctor, but the Primary "Care" Doctor won't give us said referral until he sees her first... but of course he's all booked up.
We've never actually gotten to see the Primary "Care" Doctor because he's always booked up. Like yesterday for example, when my wife is on the floor weeping from the pain, and he is "unavailable."
They sent us to some "Immediate Care" offshoot of the Hospital which turned out to be not so immediate... all because he's unavailable... it doesn't matter of course that my wife has a kidney stone the size of Rhode Island lodged in her bladder... He still can't see her today and won't write the referral until he sees her... he's just THAT busy... Of course if you call his office and ask if he's accepting new patients, "Of course," is the response you get.
So thank you for taking the "Care" out of "Primary Care Physician."
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Farting in the Shower is a ramblingand ecclectic mix of short stories, embarrasing confessions, pictures, and fast food reviews.
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11 comments:
oh joel, that sucks. i hope that your wife is able to get the attention (and care!) she needs soon.
Oh Joel..I am sorry....Trust me..I have been down that road myself the past few months...Going from Dr to Dr to Dr...Its really a pain in the rear!!
They really should see her...Seriously..I would take her back to the ER or to the hospital where she can at least have some pain med..Ya know? If things get worse, please take her back there...I can only imagine the pain that she is in.
Take care of yourself too..You hear me??
oh damn!!! i hope morena is doing better. please take her to get the medical attention she needs. i hate seeing (or this case reading) people in so much pain!!
pain sucks. i hope er gave her something nice and strong. hope you get in to see the doctor soon.
I really hate our medical system in this country. It's ridiculous that he needs to see someone first before he can refer her to a specialist and of course, HMO's or health insurance companies won't budge on their policies either.
well...i am sure i will read this is the update later, but i hope your wife is doing good. pain stinks. argg to pain. pain has been x-ed.
Hello my name is Andres Menocal and I am one of the employees at Dr. Menocal's new practice.
Your story of your wife receiving medical care is unfortunate and I wish it could have been handled better. Looking at what occured, it does not seem as if Dr. Menocal did anything wrong, he was simply following protocol. Unfortunately, when dealing with a physician through a hospital such as FMH, the protocol is bureaucratic and unecessary.
At most/any medical practice, in order to see a specialist the patient needs to get a referral from their primary care physican. In order to get a referral, the patient needs to set an appointment. Rediculous as it may seem, such are the guidlines imposed by medical companies and such. The "Immediate Care" offshoot is a definite misnomer, but it beats the Emergency Room.
If you do want some advice for next time when the situation arrives, call your doctor's office and demand to be "worked-in" to the appointment schedule. Either that or just show up as a "walk-in". The only drawbacks for this type of appointment is that you will have to wait longer to get seen; anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours but it beats waiting 1-4 days with a kidney stone.
For the shoddy service and treatment your wife received before, it is slightly unfair to place the blame on the doctor. Doctors commonly have to follow the guidlines imposed by hospitals and insurance companies. Either that or they can face penalties and chagrin from their peers for disrupting the usual order of operations.
With that being said, it is good to note that Dr. Menocal has left the Frederick Memorial Hospital scene and started a new practice providing service for the poor, uninsured and older patients that have been with him for 25 years.
Your method of writing to inform the online community of this frustrating event is helpful and compelling. However, you should give the new practice a try and tell us what you think of it. Always open to criticsm and new patients, we ask for you to give Dr. Menocal a second chance and see him at his new office. The red tape is gone and so is the bureaucracy.
*P.S.*
Since when has a doctor not been unwilling to see new patients? The business logic in turning away new patients is unsound. In business terms, why would any business not accept new customers?
***NEW PRACTICE***
Menocal Medical Service
110 Baughmans Lane
Frederick, MD 21702
Suite 140
Phone: (240)-215-1138
Fax: (240)-215-1140
E-mail: JMenocal@fmh.org
Accept:
*Aetna HMO
*Aetna PPO
*Informed
*Cigna HMO
*Cigna PPO
*Mamsi (All Products)
*Maryland Medical Assistance
*Maryland Physicians Care
*United Healthcare
*Priority Partners
*Great West
*Amerigroup
*Medicare
*Americhoice
*Amerigroup
*Self-Pay or Cash Paying Patients
andres-
thanks for the feedback... although this incident happened a year and half a go, it still upsets me... maybe I was wrong to blame the doctor, but from our perspective the simple fact is that Dr. Menocal was my wife's PCP for 3 years and in that time we never met him... seriously... she tried to see him on probably 7-8 occasions that I can recall and he never had any openings. Each time we had to see another doctor in the office.
Eventually she just changed her PCP to Dr. Asuncion (sp?) who we found to be very personable, competent, and most importantly... available.
We have since left the Frederick area and sadly, continuing to see Dr. Asuncion is not practical so well be now searching for another PCP.
Like I said I may very well have been wrong in blaming Dr. Menocal but I was pretty frustrated. Anyway, I hope things work out well for you all in your new practice.
Dear Joel:\
It is me .. Julio Menocal, M.D..
I am so sorry about your unfortunate turn of events. However, I personally was not contacted at any time by any Parkview Medical Group staff about your wife's condition. This was most likely handled by the "referrals office" at Parkview.
I was so distressed by Parkview's policies that I actually left and started my own. I did it primarily to service the Medical Assistance population that Parkview Medical group will not service anymore.
I agree with all your comments except the "Taking the care out of Primary Care". I also object to you using my name directly when the issue was clearly an administrative one where I was not even consulted.
So I am asking you nicely to rephrase the heading of your blog to some other name rather than my own. "Parkview Medical Group" would be a more appropriate one.
I truly hope we can resolve this without any further ado.
I invite you to see my new office any time. Again, I am truly sorry about your bad experience. There are many other examples of people being given the run around and using a doctor's name. I tried changing this but eventually I had to leave
Dr. Menocal,
Thanks for stopping by. This post was written over 18 months ago on a blog that is no longer active... as I stated in my response to Andres' comment, I may have been wrong to place the blame with you... but then again, maybe not.
For what it's worth, we never had another problem with Parkview after changing our PCP.
I also find it interesting that you object to the use of your name in the post title but have no problem with suggesting that I use the name of your former employer.
However, I'm not one to hold a grudge and have no problem removing your name from both the post' title and the text of the actual post... But I will not, as you have suggested, replace your name with that of your former employer since it is my belief that they were not at fault in the matter.
I thank you for handling this matter in a polite manner, and I would once again like sincerely wish you the best of luck in your new practice.
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