As I've mentioned here before, Mark had surgery in June, late June. He had been suffering with kidney stones for a while and finally they called his number and he got to go in and have those suckers blasted with lasers. It was a fairly simple procedure, no incisions, done by a surgeon who confided that he had kicked ass at Dragon Slayer in the 80's. Good stuff. Excellent result, Mark's had an awesome recovery. All is well.
So, we find out this week that he needs to have another surgery. Slightly more complicated surgery this time, to deal with a completely different issue. The issue was identified during his Kidney Stone diagnosis and some of the pre-surgical screening stuff he had to do.
Now, because he has been a surgical patient so recently, and us being thoughtful folks who don't want to cost the fragile health care system anymore money than we need to, we were hopeful that we could save the taxpayers some money and us some time, by avoiding the pre-surgical screening stuff.
When we met with the new surgeon (different issue, different doctor - both are AWESOME), he gave us a form to fill out and we figured that was the end of it. Mark gets a call on Wednesday that he is required to go in for another PSS. When he called back yesterday to talk to the folks in charge, he explained how he'd already had one and, had filled out a form. They were insistent that he go in and told him that it would only take 10 minutes because all they needed was a blood draw. Fine, he parks the cab and goes in.
One hour and ten minutes later, he walked out, fuming. I can't blame him. They did do the blood work but they also sat with him, went over his questionnaire (the woman who he met with had his form from Monday with her) again. Not only did she ask each question again, slowly, she circled his answers which had already been checked off.
Dumb.
Now, this is an excellent hospital with helpful, well trained, courteous staff. We're very happy about the level care he's been receiving in recent months and have no doubts about the level of care he'll continue to receive when he goes in for his surgery in a week and a bit. Honestly though, how much did it cost the system for him to have that meeting yesterday? Not to mention the wages he lost by being in there instead of out on the road. Maybe I'm just crabby from the heat but this really bugged me and I know it bothered Mark too. Ugh!
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