It was pretty much exactly like the commercial, except there was a second person 10 feet away with another cell phone he was talking to. Some doctors had complained of poor reception in our area, which isn’t a big surprise because there are several ginormous MRI machines over our heads generating ginormous electrical fields, so there’s also tons of shielding.
Did you yell back, “WHAT??? WHAT DID YOU SAY???” cause I woulda. 
Send a letter to his supervisor complementing his efforts and how well he captured the essence of great customer service. Tell them what a joy it was to have such a talented technician servicing your account. Assuming of course, that he fixed the problem. Otherwise, complain about his accent.
Well, I kind of informally applied for a job – I told him I could dial a cell phone and say, “Can you hear me now?” too, and did they have any openings. He said he didn’t know, and also said the job involved driving 100,000 miles or more a year.
Though I don;t think he was one of the ‘real’ Verizon test people. I think he was probably a local sales guy responding to a complaint from our hospital, which has to be one of his biggest customers. When he referred to the job and mileage, he said ‘they’, not ‘we’.
Where do you work that has several MRI machines?
And they’re in a building of at least two stories?
These mysterious buildings are often called “hospitals.”
Never seen one with multiple MRIs inside the hospital. The few hospitals I’ve seen have a single MRI in a separate building outside of the hospital.
So, maybe this isn’t far from reality: (warning, cursing): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxdTVaMjwD4
I was told “several”. I know that there are at least two, because I had an MRI once and saw two machines in two adjoining rooms. I have also seen an additional one, and sometimes a PET scanner, parked outside of the hospital in trailers on occasion. I don’t know whether this is done when the ones in-house are down, or they just need more capacity for a short time.
Where are you from, tr0psn4j ? I saw a story several years back on 60 Minutes about the over-abundance of high-tech gear in American hospitals compared to other places. I believe the story claimed that there were more MRI machines in the city of Denver than in all of Canada.
For a mid-sized city, Madison is pretty glutted with medical facilities. 3 general hospitals, a VA hospital, several specialized hospitals (there’s one pediatric hospital and another being built, two psych hospitals, and more that aren’t coming to mind), one medical school and four nursing schools. Education is the biggest industry here.
What, parked between the outhouse and woodshed?
I’m in Los Angeles. We have plenty of imagine centers but, as far as I know, most places limit themselves with one, maybe two machines. The way I understand it is that there isn’t that much demand for MRIs. I’m a MRI tech in training and the hospital I intern in gets an average of two patients a day.
I think people are starting to think of MRIs as excessive and wasteful. One article called them “Money Sucking Machines,” while someone else on a radio show I was recently listening to also seemed to imply the same thing.
Yep, pretty much. Getting an MRI into an existing building usually involves breaking down walls. Most likely, you’d want it on the top floor in case you need to “quench” the machine. All that helium has to get to the outside away from people. Plus, the room is plated with metal and turned into a Faraday cage to keep RF signals from coming in and also from going out.
So a lot of places opt to keep their MRI’s in a isolated trailer or building.
Yeah, but that’s because depending on which of the four crap-ass HMOs you have, you can only go to half of them. I live 5 minutes from a brand-new ER center I can’t use because it’s out-of-network. Just one of the things I hate about this fucking place.
Who’s got the new ER? I know it’s not Meriter, because that’s where I work. St. Mary’s just built a whole new building, but I think that was for outpatient services. If you live near UW Hospital, you’re probably within 5 minutes of me too.
As far as MRIs, looking about, there have to be at least 3. I had my MRI in the hospital, but it was in the University of Wisconsin Hospital & Clinics cardiac unit housed here. There’t at least two in there. There’s another organization called Turville Bay MRI & Radiation Oncology Center which has an office and at least one MRI in our hospital, and more elsewhere in town. Finally, it seems likely though not certain that our hospital has at least one of its own.
And don’t get me started on health insurance around here. My employer actually owns a chunk of Physician’s Plus insurance, but still our policies are for shit. I had much better coverage from my last employer. And yeah, every hospital has teamed up with an insurer, and the insurer pretty much dictates where you’re allowed to go.
The new St. Mary’s building is some sort of ER center. There was an article in the paper about your hospital reprimanding the Sun Prairie EMS for taking patients there whose insurance doesn’t work there. Though I’ve been told that if I somehow end up in a hospital that isn’t Meriter or UW after an accident, I’ll have some coverage, though I’m sure I’ll still end up with hundreds more in bills.
My insurance is through Physicians Plus. I could get Dean through my wife’s work, but it’s almost twice as expensive. And I had a hell of a time finding a primary care doctor - there’s maybe one doctor at every two or three UW clinics accepting new patients. And of course, you can’t ever actually see YOUR doctor without making an appointment two weeks out. And God forbid you get sick out of network, meaning out of southern Wisconsin. I know Door County must be nice this time of year, and The Dells are great for the kids, but some of us would like to actually be able to leave the fucking state and be able to go to the doctor if we have to.
According to that article, St., Mary’s new ER is in Sun Prairie.
BTW, I live very close to the intersection of University Ave and Midvale, just south of Shorewood.
Yeah, I live on the ass-edge of Madison, on the other side of the interstate from East Towne Mall. But it’s technically still Madison. My son goes to Sun Prairie schools, but apparently I’ll need to move before he starts middle school. According to the local parents and the test scores, Sun Prairie schools fall way off after the elementary level.
I’m still trying to find a neighborhood in Madison that has decent schools, is affordable, isn’t overrun by college students and hasn’t been taken over by Chicagoland gangs. I have yet to find one that meets all four qualifications.
I’m always doing that, on my Verizon land line. Please see my thread in General Questions if you know anything about improving land line reliability.
There are NO neighborhoods in Madison taken over by Chicagoland gangs. There are a couple of areas that have more violence than the rest. I’ve lived in and around Chicago and DC for most of my life, and crime here is practically a joke when compared to real cities.
The expense, well, that I can agree with, but only when compared to the surrounding towns.
Minor nitpick: magnetic fields not “electrical fields”. 