There is always a steady supply for stories... I will warn you. This is a long one. If you decide to plow through this, you might want to get some food first to make it all the way through.

Today I had the privilege of gaining a good look at yet one more facet of our medical system, and so much that is wrong with it. An acquaintance of mine who has MS was in a car wreck a little while ago, and broke his leg in three places. For reasons not germane to the story, he needed a ride to his doctor this morning, and no one to take him, so I stepped in to do a good deed. And you know what they say about no good deed going unpunished…

I arrived at his house bright and early. It was so early it wasn’t even really bright yet, but his appointment was for 0830, and I didn’t want him being late on my account. I am compulsive that way. He has been getting around the house in a wheelchair, with a walker for those short bits where the chair won’t work. I ushered him out to my truck, and got him installed in the front seat. I offered to put his walker in the back seat. He said, “Oh, just leave it here! I’m not going to need it anywhere, and they have a wheelchair for me to use at the doctor’s office.” Now, I am a fan of having it and not needing it rather than the other way around. But even though I had room for about 50 walkers in the truck, I acceded to his wishes, and off we went to the doctor’s. This leaving the walker home will become important later on.

We arrived at the doctor’s office in good order. I parked the truck at the front door temporarily, and went in to procure the promised chair. I eventually got the attention of the vacuous looking young lady behind the counter, and got her to bring a chair out. As I was going out with the chair, some man came striding in who looked like he had no business there as a patient. This is a pain management shop, and he certainly moved like he had no pain at all. I discovered a few seconds later that he was the Doctor Himself, and he had already chastised my passenger for parking in the no parking zone. When he discovered the need for the chair, he was appropriately mollified.

I won’t go into the sordid details of sitting in the office with the TV blaring and the dedicated conversationalist sitting next to me. Suffice to say, it was not fun. But after a 30 minute wait, we were on the road again, this time to the pharmacy. He has two choices in his town. The one place is pretty efficient about filling his prescriptions, but rarely has his pills in stock. The other place usually has them in stock, but has created a whole bunch of extra rules to make things even harder to actually get your script filled. Think of the efficiency of the TSA and you will get the idea.

True to form, the first place did not have the pills, so we backtracked to the second place. It was there that we discovered that the mental giant at the doctor’s office had written the one prescription for ZERO pills. This is where the real fun started.

“I’m sorry sir, but we have to give this script back to you. We can’t fill it.”

Now, I am sitting in the drive through window, and since I am driving, I am the one who has to carry on the conversation.

“Can’t you just call the doctor?”

Oh no, we can’t do that!”

“Well how ‘bout we have the DOCTOR call YOU!?!?”

“Oh, no, we can’t do that either. You have to go back to the doctor and get it redone.”

“And I suppose it will take a second hour to get it filled when we return, right?” This pharmacy has a policy of taking an hour to fill narcotics prescriptions, under the guise of checking to see if the patient is trying to get multiple bottles of pills from different places.

“That’s the way it works sir.”

“Why?” People hate this question. Commoners are not supposed to ask WHY. They’re just supposed to obey!

“Because sir”, she replied officiously, “We need the time to check his public records.” Yes. She actually said public records, like that would end all discussion of the matter.

We just looked at one another and he shook his head. I asked him later on if there was a place we could go on the web where all the pills he took were listed out for the general public.

So back to the doctor’s office we went. I parked in the same place in front of the doors, on the chance that I would have to haul him in (their chair is one with the little wheels that the patients can’t use themselves) to get the thing fixed. As it was, they remembered me. But now there was a line. Some lady came in behind me, looked at it and said, “Is this the line!?!”

“Yes ma’am, and I hope you’re not in a hurry.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Have you been here before?”

“Yes. You’re not joking.” This with an eye roll that would make a teenager proud.

When I got to my turn, I held the prescription up and explained that they had tried to fill it, but had no bottles for no pills. The woman there looked at me like I had three heads, but promised to get it taken care of “right away”. Right away turned out to be about 15 minutes. She got hostile with me when I commented about how this thing went through the hands of at least two or three people and no one checked the number of pills on it. In my head, I was thinking of the recipient as well, but who checks things like that? Isn't the DOCTOR, who insists on reviewing everything before he signs it supposed to do that? Finally, with our brand new prescription in hand, this time with an actual number on it, we headed back to the friendly pharmacy.

We turned it in and picked up the first one. We got a big insincere smile, and the assurance that this one would be filled in another hour, after the required background check. Because, you know, within that last hour, we could have been all over town with fake prescriptions for zero pills.

By this time we were hungry. There was a Dunkin Donuts next door, so we went to their drive through window. I decided on the turkey sausage, egg and cheese flatbread. It was awful. I had a few bites of bread, just to get some carbs into my system. It was some sort of multigrain slab, so I did not eat much. I removed the egg and sausage. The egg was like plastic. And, it had all the flavor scientifically removed. The turkey sausage had the same texture and appearance as one of the floor mats in my shop. The flavor had NOT been removed. It was truly awful. I do not know about the cheese, as it was glued to the bread, and was not coming off. But, it filled the tiny hole in my stomach with some sort of protein.

At this point, my charge announced that he had to pee. He then allowed how it might have been a good idea after all if we had brought the walker with us. I had visions of having to hose out my truck.

“Do you think… would you mind… could we drive back up to my house so I can pee?”

His house is about five miles out of town, but we had most of an hour left to kill, so I said sure. Besides, I know what it is like to be in a spot where you have to go and you can’t. But all the while I was thinking about that walker, and how some cranky old man wanted to bring it along. We drove up to his house, took care of the needs of nature, and then decided to hang out there until the pharmacy notified him on his app that everything was done and ready.

He briefly toyed with the idea of just sending me down, so he wouldn’t have to go out again. I was fine with that. The temperature had risen all the way from 8 to 12 degrees, so it wasn’t exactly pleasant for him out there with a busted leg and no real mobility. In the end, he decided to go along, just in case the nice young lady with the demonic eyes decided to jerk us around one last time for the day. We completed the transaction, and I dropped him off after 4 1/2 hours into a projected 90 minute trip. And that was just the first part of my day. The rest has been just about as exciting, but that would make this story even longer.

I also had incredible care in a small regional medical center in which i was self pay. So sometimes i wonder if that has something to do with it.

If I were a betting man, I would say it is more likely corporate culture. The people who run the place determine how the people who work there treat the customer/patient. The self pay might have a bearing if they did not take other forms (i.e. insurance), because then it is all about satisfied customers.