I lost it this evening with an eye doctors answering service.

[boston bean]

Here's the scoop.

My son wears special contact lenses that you put in overnight and takes them out in the morning and he can see 20/20.

He's had these contacts for about 2 years and I paid $1200 for them.

Well toni te he runs out of his special solution. I call Walgreen's, cvs, walmart(yuck), target, brooks, stop n shop. No one has any. So I call the manufacturer, and they tell me that it hasn't shipped for a month, but the stores should have it by the beginning of next week.

So, my son's contacts are soaking in the solution with the drops for cleaning. He needs to rinse them off before putting them in toni te. And I have no contact solution. We have never used anything else for solution and these are expensive contacts and there are so many kinds, I can't figure out the type to buy. He has no glasses because the eye doctor told us he did not need them, but he has to be able to see for school tomorrow.

So it's now 5:25pm and I call the eye doctor to get advice on what type of solution to purchase. The answering service dude tells that he doesn't think this is an emergency so he puts this chick on the phone.

She tells me that she can't bother the doctor for lense solution. The other doc in the office is sick. I go on to explain my situation and she still doesn't want to call the on call doctor. I end up telling her that she has to call him for me and ask him to call me.

She allegedly reluctantly does call him. I get a call back from the answering service chick and she tells me the doctor said that "I called the office too late that he'll deal with it in the morning".

Well I went off on her. Since when does an answering service make medical determinations on when to call the on call doctor. She denies that she did so. I argued with her and told her that she most certainly did tell me that. She didn't want to bother him with my concern. I went on to tell her that I would be making a complaint against her in the morning because I felt she did not relay to the doctor the situation I was in and that I wasn't even sure that she had called him.

Well anyway, she hung up on me. I'm still reeling a little.

What kind of office treats its patients this way. It wasn't like it was 11 at nite. It was 5:25 in the afternoon for chrissakes.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

1. Sounds like you need a new doctor...

Also, you might call around to the local hospitals and see if they have an eye doctor on call. Some hospitals employ them?
Duckie

[GardeningGal]

2. I would be pissed off at that response.

I'd make sure in the morning that the doctor knows the situation and if you still don't get satisfaction I would definitely find a new doctor.

That's bullshit.

[hippywife]

3. That is ridiculous!

Given the situation, there is no reason not to call him and ask a simple question. It's not like he has to come into the office to answer it.

I call doctors' offices frequently to make appointments for the residents of my retirement community. Most all of them have an automated message for you to make choices on what you need. Anyway, many of these introductory messages have begun including the information that if it is after hours, preceding with the call "may" cost you $25! Bunk! Medicine has turned into nothing but another big business.