I posted in another thread that I was recently told to reduce my daily dose of Dilantin, then get blood drawn two weeks later. So I did that. But when I got to the clinic where I always have blood drawn, they told me they didn’t have an order. “Well, can you call Dr. F’s office?” I asked. They did; an order was faxed over; the procedure was done; and today I had my appt.
Before I saw the doctor*, the nurse** told me that the blood test hadn’t yielded the results they needed. Long story short, the order that was faxed over to the clinic was not the one specific to this new change in dosage. First she offered to draw blood again right there in the office, then came back and said she didn’t have the “tubes” (?) necessary to test for the Dilantin levels, so I would have to go back to the clinic.
It wasn’t until I got home that I said (to Mr. Rilch), “Waitaminit…The reason I didn’t give them the correct order, as the nurse said I should have, is because I was never given one! I was instructed to reduce my order over the phone, so I couldn’t have had that piece of paper. It would have been up to the office to fax over the correct order.”
So what I’m getting at here is, I don’t want another clinic visit to go on my insurance. What I’d like to do is go back to the office and have blood drawn there, and not have to make a co-payment because it won’t be an actual appointment.
I know this will be difficult to negotiate. First, I’ll have to convince them that I’m not unwilling to get blood drawn again at all; then, I have to hope that they’ll allow me to visit the office without making a co-payment.
I know I’ll have to get blood drawn again; I’m not trying to get out of that. Nor do I think that these people are at my beck and call. But the mistake, that resulted in the test not yielding the necessary results, was not mine. And I don’t think I should have to pay, or have it go on my insurance.
*Dr. F. is somewhere else right now (vacation? Teaching? I forget), and this new person is filling in. This is probably a matter of some kind of miscommunication, because of that. But it’s still not my fault that the clinic didn’t get the correct order, and I shouldn’t have to pay.
**She was wearing the coolest scrubs! Bright red pants, and a red top chockablock with hearts of a lighter shade of red!
And she got very impatient in telling me again that she couldn’t test me for Dilantin in the office. Hey, I don’t have “R.N.” after my name; when she said ‘tubes’, I thought they might just possibly be an expendable that she was temporarily out of. My asking if she could do the test was not an accusation, but she took it as one.