****Disclosure**** This is me venting. It in no way reflects how I feel about Healthcare providers and WRNMMC. I'm soo eternally grateful for them and the services they offer. Once we got through the miscommunication and craziness of it all, we haven't had a single problem****
When we called Walter Reed National Military Medical Center (WR for short, cuz I'm lazy) in February I was motivated and ready to do whatever they needed me to do. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but I had no idea that the next five months would be some of the worst of my life.
After talking with a secretary on the phone, I learned that in order to be accepted into the program, there were a few things we had to do. 1-Perform all the necessary blood/urine/semen tests 2- Pay a lot of money 3- Attend an orientation meeting.
We had already taken most of the blood tests, every doctor had done the same ones for the past two years. Unfortunately, they needed to have been done within the year. Not a big deal, Shady Grove Fertility had all my results and paperwork and they could send it to WR. So I called them up and explained the situation. Of course they could send my paperwork. It would be $30, and it would have to be mailed. Seriously? Not even faxed? Of course not. That's fine, I'm not in a hurry.
Unfortunately, without that paperwork I had no idea what tests were outdated. I had no where to start. So we waited. And waited. I called WR about twice a week to see if they'd received the package, and I called Shady Grove to confirm that they sent it. During this time I'm getting all the routine forms filled out (that I've already filled out at least 4 times at each doctor...).
A month later I get an email saying that they have received my paperwork from Shady Grove and they listed out all the tests that had expired and needed to be re-taken. I finally had a place to start, and I could finally get going.
I called my Ob/Gyn to schedule the appointment. She's not my favorite. It was difficult from the beginning. After waiting weeks for the results of my routine "womanly" exams, I went back to check on the result of the referrals my gyno was supposed to make for the blood work I needed. When asked about them, she initially refused to write them out for me. If she wasn't doing the procedure, why should she write the referral for the blood work? But she gave in, eventually. I waited another week for her office to call me back saying I could come pick them up. They never called, so of course I called them asking what the deal was. They put me through to my doc, who was not happy. Me- "Ma'am, I just need a referral for blood work and a saline sonogram."
Doc- "I don't know the code for requesting any of that, and it's a lot of work for me to look it up."
Me- "That's fine, I can wait on the line."
Doc- "I'll have it ready for you to pickup tomorrow."
But no, It's not ready when I get there. And the Doctor isn't even in. I'm angry. I'm tired. I'm sick of being referred to as "the infertile one" by the front desk staff (yeah, that happened). To their credit, they worked fast when I got angry. Five minutes later I had all the paperwork I needed. I had already taken off a few hours from work, so I headed to the Laboratory. Check that off the list.
Meanwhile, we started working on Dale's requirements. These were pretty routine tests that the Marine Corps does every year anyways. But such is our luck, his doctors weren't willing to put in referrals for his blood tests either. If WR wanted to tests done, then the doctors there could write them out. Of course I called WR to see if that was a possibility, and I was told no. I also asked that because Dale had done all these tests recently already, and that they were all in the military healthcare database, if they could just look them up. Of course not. That would be to easy. So we managed to convince his doctors, he did the blood tests. And we filled out the required paperwork to have the results send to WR.
I needed a vacation. Thankfully my sister had planned a great one, I just needed to fly back to Utah. Totally worth it. We were leaving for Utah on May 10th. Our goal was to have this all done by then so I wouldn't have to stress about it. That's laughable now.
The last thing I needed was another Saline Sonogram. Unfortunately, this procedure needs to be timed with my menstrual cycle. And of course at this specific time of my cycle I'd be in Utah. Not a problem. I have some GREAT doctors in Utah, so I'll call them up and explain the situation. I can't even begin to explain how refreshing it was to talk to a healthcare provider who gave a damn. I made the appointment (it was a few weeks away). And turned my attention to making sure the rest of our results had been send to Walter Reed.
I thought Dale's tests would be the easiest part. About a week after he had the blood tests I called WR to see if they had received them. Nope. Nothing. Ok, I'll just call the clinic and see if they can re-fax them. Maybe I gave them the wrong number. Tried again a week later. Nothing. This time, Dale's clinic got annoyed and decided to make the call themselves. "We've received 3 copies of his records from you guys over the past two weeks." F.M.L.
Oh, and those blood tests that I had to fight for? The results were never sent back to my Gyno's office from the lab. Which means they could never forward them to WR. We were getting awfully close to our Utah trip, and I was soo ready to never talk to any humans again. But I knew I had to talk to the peeps at WR and figure out what was going on.
This was May 6th. I'm glad I called. First, I learned that the May/June Cycle was going to start while we were in Utah. If we could get all our stuff done before leaving (except the sonogram, those results just needed to be faxed as soon as the results came in), we could possibly make that cycle. If not, we'd have to wait until September. Second, when I told the secretary that my last blood test result had never been received, she answered "Oh, not a problem. Just come in here and we'll do all the blood work at our lab." I nearly cried. Right there on the phone. I could have just done all the lab work there? Instead of dealing with crazy people for a month? It's not possible. Third...
WR- "Mrs Thompson, have you attended the Orientation Meeting?"
Me- "You said we couldn't go until we had all our paperwork in."
WR- "No, you can come at anytime before the paperwork is done."
Me- "Ok.... when is your next orientation meeting?"
WR- "May 10 at 11:00am. And if you don't make it to that one, you won't be able to do the next cycle."
Me- "Ok, our flight leaves at 6:00 pm, sign us up for orientation. And I'll do the blood work while we're there. Can I confirm that you have everything else you need?"
WR- "Absolutely... It looks like we are still missing all of Dale's test results."
Me- *Awkward Silence* "Are you serious?"
WR- "Do you want me to schedule blood work for him too while you are here?"
*I don't want to be on this planet anymore.*
I guess I'm learning the hard way that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself. So Monday morning Dale stopped at his clinic and had them print off his results. I went to my gyno's office and asked them to print off all of my results. If my paperwork was going to be lost, it would now be my fault.
Tuesday May 10 was easy. We drove to WR at 8am. We handed in all of our paperwork, I did the blood work I still needed, we sat through Orientation, and we paid our deposit. Before we left, Dale went to the office one more time just to confirm that all of our tests results were in, and that once we sent in the labs from my saline sonogram in a few days, we were good to go. We could start the IVF process when we got home. They told us we were done. We walked out the doors knowing that in 24 hours we'd be hiking, fishing, and definitely not doing any blood tests.
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