Apologies for poor formatting, on mobile and it’s my first time posting here. I am in California and this was with Kaiser, for what it’s worth.
I have recurrent issues with a pilonidal cyst, which I’ve had surgery on twice before within the last five years. This year, back in February, my GP recommended something called a “bascom flap procedure.” She refers me to a surgeon, the meeting goes well, and the surgeon schedules me for surgery on April 24th.
About a month later, I get a call from Kaiser saying that surgeon is actually double booked that day and can no longer do the surgery, but that another surgeon can on April 4th. It takes some serious finagling, but I’m able to get the time off work and my mom books a ticket to fly into the state to come help me with my recovery. HOWEVER, on April 2nd I receive another phone call from scheduling saying that this second surgeon doesn’t perform this bascom flap surgery, and that they will have to reschedule me for the next week, on April 11th. Work is understanding, and my mother was able to rebook her flight for a $150 dollar fee, although she lost about $500 on a non refundable airbnb due to the short notice cancellation.
April 11th comes around and I check into the hospital at 1:30 for my 4pm surgery. Everything appears to be going smoothly, I receive an IV as well as some gabapentin, Tylenol, and a scopolamine patch behind my right ear. Throughout the next 3 hours, I repeatedly ask nurses and the anesthesiologist to confirm that I will be receiving the correct procedure, I see it listed on my patient consent form, etc.
At 3:30 the anesthesiologist comes and meets with me, discusses the specifics of his portion of the procedure, and tells me that they are just readying the OR and they will be ready to wheel me in at any moment. He leaves, nurse checks up on me one more time, and at this point the surgeon comes in to speak with me and my mother. He asks me about my medical history, and eventually gets to the point— he doesn’t know how to perform my fucking procedure. Not only that, but he doesn’t know of any surgeons in my immediate area that do.
We talk for about 10 minutes in total, most of which my mother got on video. He offers to perform another procedure on me, even though I have already had that procedure and it was not successful for me. He also tells me he’s going to call his department heads and find out how all this happened, which didn’t feel like much of a consolation to me. It’s at this point I am discharged with basically zero information, with my scopolamine patch and ekg patches still on.
I am not a litigious person, and I know Kaiser is a behemoth, but my mother lost well over 1000 dollars on this trip, and I have missed work because of it as well, not to mention the billing for all my appointments leading up to this and the 5000 dollar copay. Is there anything I can do here?
Written By: monsoonbb
Source: http://bit.ly/2V7D9Hk
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