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An even bigger bitchslap to my neurologist
Jul. 2nd, 2009 11:20 amWell, well.
I've been trying to get to my neurologist's website for a while now, probably at least a month. I keep getting the same error message from medem.com, telling me that my provider's site is down.
So, today I decide to just go directly to medem.com, instead of using the full practice website address Dr. Gaffney gave me. I do a provider search. I search first and last name, first initial and last name, and last name only. I do a search for the specific city in which we live, and for Houston. Each time I get the same error message..."cannot be found in our records".
So apparently either he, his new practice partner, or both of them together, decided that it's more cost effective (for them, anyway) to make patients spend money on an appointment than to let them communicate with the practice via medem.com for free. So not only is my neurologist sending me bullshit pamphlets from the AAN trying to justify why I should spend more on brand name drugs, not only is he telling me he can't/won't communicate with me via my own email address, but now he's making it abundantly clear (as if the AAN thing hadn't done that already) that he's more interested in turning a profit than caring for his patients as human beings. And what really chaps my hide is that the practice website has probably been down this long with his full knowledge and consent, and instead of having the cojones to admit that to me, he wants to turn it back on me and act like *I'm* the one who's at fault for wanting to communicate with him via my own email, since I can't do it through the practice website anymore.
Update: Well, shuckiedarn. Apparently he or his practice partner really did think I'd put up with getting swatted on the nose with a newspaper. He really should know me better than that by now. This (drumroll, please) is the email I just got back from him, after I emailed him to tell him about medem's inability to find him in their records:
I've been trying to get to my neurologist's website for a while now, probably at least a month. I keep getting the same error message from medem.com, telling me that my provider's site is down.
So, today I decide to just go directly to medem.com, instead of using the full practice website address Dr. Gaffney gave me. I do a provider search. I search first and last name, first initial and last name, and last name only. I do a search for the specific city in which we live, and for Houston. Each time I get the same error message..."cannot be found in our records".
So apparently either he, his new practice partner, or both of them together, decided that it's more cost effective (for them, anyway) to make patients spend money on an appointment than to let them communicate with the practice via medem.com for free. So not only is my neurologist sending me bullshit pamphlets from the AAN trying to justify why I should spend more on brand name drugs, not only is he telling me he can't/won't communicate with me via my own email address, but now he's making it abundantly clear (as if the AAN thing hadn't done that already) that he's more interested in turning a profit than caring for his patients as human beings. And what really chaps my hide is that the practice website has probably been down this long with his full knowledge and consent, and instead of having the cojones to admit that to me, he wants to turn it back on me and act like *I'm* the one who's at fault for wanting to communicate with him via my own email, since I can't do it through the practice website anymore.
Update: Well, shuckiedarn. Apparently he or his practice partner really did think I'd put up with getting swatted on the nose with a newspaper. He really should know me better than that by now. This (drumroll, please) is the email I just got back from him, after I emailed him to tell him about medem's inability to find him in their records:
Ms. Ewing, sorry we did not renew the site. It was expensive and only two of my patients were using it. – Dr. Gaffney
It was expensive! Whodathunk! And shame on him for not, as I said above, having the balls to just tell me so, rather than acting like it's my fault!
