mccThere are a lot of things I hate about how doctors treat you but I think the one that makes me most *mad* is when doctor A refers you to doctor B, and you show up at doctor B, and they ask you about some result or other, and you say "doctor A has that" and they're like "we didn't get a copy"
Anyway this is especially great because almost all doctors have no way of engaging with you other than "get an appointment, wait two months, they see you for 20 minutes" so if that result from the other doctor was actually important that boosts any kind of outcome out by another two month cycle. Hope you weren't having like, an ongoing health problem you needed resolution on or anything.
Graham Sutherland / Polynomial@mcc so infuriating.
over here it's all centralised into the NHS N3 network, which is a frickin godsend, but even then they do sometimes find a way to mess it up regardless.
most frustrating one I had was being sent to a rheumatology specialist (3 month lead time), be referred for a nonstandard (HLA-B27 antigen presence) blood test, have blood taken, wait a week, then find out they just ran a basic blood panel and not the actual test, so I needed to go around again.
Joshua Barretto@gsuberland @mcc It's unceasingly weird to me that you can just ask the NHS for a blood test without any sort of referral... And that a lot of hospitals and GP surgeries will assume that "gee, I just wanted one for fun" is the default reason for you asking for one unless you mention the referral
@jsbarretto @mcc I don't know that I've ever seen that be the case. in my case they did the standard panel because that was ticked on the form (they were looking for inflammatory markers and that comes as part of the standard panel) but the lab missed the HLA-B27 antigen test in the "other" section of the form.
@jsbarretto @mcc I don't think I could go to my doctor and say "give me a blood test" with no qualifying reason, for example. and I can't go direct to the duty nurse at the surgery 'cos I need the doc to fill out the blood test form.
I could, however, get a regular GP appointment and say "hey it's been a while since I had a proper checkup, could you check my bloods and BP to make sure I'm healthy?" and get the OK there with zero hassle.
@gsuberland @mcc Interesting. My GP lets you request blood tests even without reason. Out of curiosity, are you in England or elsewhere?