Hopeless Geek

We got back from our most recent pregnancy checkup today and have pretty much lost faith in the office we’ve been going to.

When we started going to ObGyn North, we went because of the reputation of Dr. Thompson. She shared the ideals we did about how the pregnancy and birth should go and felt it was a good fit. She’d been there for some number of decades and was very popular and very good at what she did, as was her staff. We always felt like things were handled very well.

Well, some short time after we arrived she retired and sold the practice to Dr. Sebestyen. Pretty much the first thing that happened was that the office staff left and was replaced with inexperienced and, frankly, lost kids that appeared to be confused by any question we asked. Not the kind of confused where they question why you’d need to ask the question, but the kind of confused where they know they should understand the question but don’t, and can’t answer you until they do.

With this new system of confused kids in place, the most obvious thing to do next is to completely change how patient records are stored, so they moved to a computerized system from their old paper one. Yes, with the confused, inexperienced children running it. No, they didn’t bring on some temps to do data entry, they had the normal staff do it on demand as people showed up. Of course, this was done without warning so if you’re on-time, you’re late after the new paperwork they make you fill out. Paperwork you’ve already done, of course, but isn’t right in front of them so it might as well not exist.

So this goes on for a while and, while annoyed, we were happy with the medical side of things and nothing horrible had happened so we kept with the office. Well, until she needed a three-hour glucose test. She was scheduled for a 7am appointment and when she arrived the paperwork wasn’t at the lab. She was told by the office staff that ObGyn North would be open at 7am. They were not. In fact, the first person arrived around 7:30am and would not or could not help her with the paperwork. She left after that.

The context that’s missing here is that this test requires fasting from 10pm the previous night to 7am the following morning (which is difficult for a pregnant woman) and then the only “food” that’s given to her for the next three hours is a glucose drink. It’s a physically-stressing test to start with, but then to have someone pregnant prepare for it and then have the offices involved completely fail to do the things needed to get it done properly the first time is rather horrible.

The office staff’s response?

“We put the form in your file so it’s ready when you want to do it again. Sorry. Bye.”

That was the first warning that things were going south here. The next came when we arrived today and were presented with more paperwork to fill out that we’d already filled out. Again. Then the document (which was a legal disclaimer and notice) was full of typos and was generally incomprehensible so we asked to talk to someone about the content. We managed to get the office manager, Marilynn, who responded to our concern over the English used in the notice with answers about insurance companies.

“No, no, what I’m saying is that this paragraph does not make sense from a language standpoint. It’s declaring that nothing will be covered by insurance, ever. Are you trying to say that some things might not be covered and to talk to them?”

“Well, some insurance companies don’t cover certain procedures, so you need to talk to them.”

“Right, okay, but that’s not what this actually says.”

“But it’s what they do.”

“No, no, I’m saying you’ve apparently written this down wrong. That’s not what you’re actually saying on paper. You need to clarify this since it’s a legal notice you expect us to sign.”

“I think you need to talk to your insurance company about this. I don’t have an answer for you.”

After several attempts to get her to focus on the words that I was saying (and her asking if I was an attorney, which was amusing) she finally figured out that I didn’t have a question, I was questioning the typos on the document. She ran off to fix the document and when she came back she reiterated all the key points of the conversation we weren’t having, just to rub it that she didn’t understand what we were talking about.

Well, that’s bad enough (since she’s running the office) that I chose to bring this up with Dr. Sebestyen herself and let her know that we’re having trouble with the office staff and the office manager. After most of the visit was out of the way, I brought up what I’d spoken to Marilynn about as well as all of the problems we’d had with the office staff so far (the paperwork and timing, forgetting to do things, etc.) and said that we just wanted to let her know that it’s “showing through” and that she should know. That was, perhaps a slight tactical mistake.

She launched into a whole-hearted defense of the office and herself and recited something (that was almost a sob story) about:

• She’s had to fire several members of the office staff for being unprofessional (she explained how, and it’s not something I think needs to be in writing).
• She’s had nine months to work on the office from scratch since Dr. Thompson’s office staff left with her.
• She’s the only person in Austin who has midwives on staff and is taking a lot of flak for that from other practices. (Not something we mentioned.)
• She hasn’t seen her husband or son a lot since she’s started.
• She has new office staff and is moving to a new computer system at the same time, and that’s hard.
• “I’m sorry I’m taking this personally, but it’s hard not to.”
• Things are going to be like this for another year, at least, and certainly will not be solved by the time we give birth. “If this bothers you, all I can say is that you may need to find another office.”

:blink:

Whoa. Okay, then.

I mentioned several times during and after all of that that I was simply letting her know that the office difficulties were showing through and that she should be aware of it. We didn’t expect an immediate resolution to these things but we felt that she should be aware that patients are seeing these problems. We have no problem with the actual medical side of the office, but the office staff are, well, bad. We got the Taking It Personally and Find Another Office lines again for our efforts at clearing things up.

Well, that broke my wife and she got really upset and, seeing this, Dr. Sebestyen quickly wrapped up the appointment and left us sitting there in shock.

“That was not what I expected,” I said to my wife.

“Me either.”

So now we’re trying to process exactly what’s going on here and what we need to do. We’re in the 8th month now and heading towards a pretty hard deadline, so we have to prepare now and spend some time getting to know the people that are going to be working with us. She’s rather upset about this and doesn’t want this doctor doing any work on her after being told to find another doctor because her concerns would not be addressed in a timely manner (which wasn’t really what we asked for or tried to convey).

What I’m thinking is that this doctor is under a lot of stress because running this practice is taking a lot more effort than she thought. Her staff is unreliable and she knows it. The office is not being managed well and she knows it. Things are falling apart under her as she tries to build it up and she knows it. Then, one day, a patient comes in and says, “Hey, by the way, your staff is sucking. Don’t know if you knew that or not.” She then loses it (being under stress about it) and gives up by saying that she can’t fix it in any reasonable amount of time and if it bothers you, leave. Sorry.

The question is: do we want to be working with someone under that kind of stress? Do we want to try changing doctors in the 8th month?

I see two plans from here.

First, we could contact her again, say that we understand she’s under stress but that because she’s a good doctor we’ll stay with her through the troubling times. This would, hopefully, endear us and resolve any enmity that may have arose. I would have no problem doing this, but it would not solve the stress problem and it would likely not fly with my wife, who wants to run home and have the child there now.

Alternatively, we finish the upcoming tests and ensure things are going well and then either transfer to another doctor or to the Austin Birthing Center. My main concern with the birthing center (or home birth) is the “what if things go horribly wrong” part. Since things are going swimmingly so far, I’m less concerned, but still weary of doing it since it’s our first and there’s no telling what could happen there.

I suppose we’ll see how this processes over the next week or so and decide from there.

Crazy women like this do nothing to ease my slightly misogynistic feelings towards “professional” women. On paper, sure, they can do anything men can. In reality, there are some that honestly can’t and let their emotions run right on over their reason and into the business transaction, poisoning the relationship and trust. That’s honestly not a good quality in a doctor, especially not an obstetrician.

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