Doctors Clinic

Don’t come here if you need urgent care. It seems to take 1 – 1.5 hours just to see the doctor.

Wow, i just got off the phone with this clinic inquiring into urgent care for a terrible sinus infection. I was told that they don’t take state insurance and won’t see me for cash sliding scale. I asked why they don’t take state insurance and was told to call customer service. I then asked if they had a marketing department and informed them I was affiliated with a local hotel and wanted to know if they service travelers and if not, where do traveling people go for urgent care. She rudely told me to google the hospital and then asked if I had any more questions pertinent to my care and informed they that she was not a directory service.

I think my current letter to the Doctor’s Clinic sums things up best:

Dear Doctors Clinic,
This letter is written in regards to my appointment on #### with Dr. #######, reference number ####.
I came in on #### 2012, after having attempted to mow my mother’s acre plus yard. The grass was thick, damp and I was using a push mower. After several hours of attempting to help my mother, the mower’s engine block overheated and died. I too, was in bad shape. I have scoliosis and have been in two major motor vehicle accidents and the yard work I had done had led to excruciating pain.
I went in to the Urgent Care in Bentley Dr, Bremerton to see Dr. #######, as he was a good friend of my former teacher, ####### #######. I had seen Dr. ####### before and because of our mutual friend, ascribed to him a level of trust — that he could help me in some way. What then proceeded after Dr. ####### entered the room was grossly incompetent, inappropriate and illegal.
Dr. ####### entered the room, asked me why I had come in and, sitting as far away as possible from me in the room, pulled up my chart and accessed my pharmaceutical records. He never physical examined my injury (which was visible), listened to my heartbeat or conducted anything resembling a primitive version of a medical examination. Instead, referencing my pharmaceutical records and seeing that I had been prescribed vicodin by my pain management doctor, said, «So you’re here for drugs?»
Dr. ####### gave me no time to respond. I was not there to suggest any particular form of treatment. I was there because I was suffering and I was looking for someone to help me. I would have been happy with any suggestion — ice pack, heat therapy, anything that might help. Instead though, Dr. ####### assumed I was there trawling for narcotics and then asked me the following: What did I get out of having back pain?
I did not understand what he had asked and I am sure the look on my face was stunned. Dr. ####### then proceeded to explain that he had suffered from a depressive disorder and enjoyed the accompanying «benefits» that he got out of his condition. As he explained it, he enjoyed his depression (or at least partly enjoyed it) because that meant he got waited on hand and foot by his family and was allowed to defer his responsibilities.
I have been in chronic pain since my first car accident at sixteen. The insinuation that I was exaggerating my condition to benefit was shocking and incredibly hurtful, not to mention wildly inappropriate. I burst into tears. How could this man who was trained to help others offer me no help, but instead inflict more suffering on me by attacking my integrity and assuming I was an opiate addict?
As I was bawling, Dr. #######‘s inappropriate behavior escalated. He literally got in my face (while I was yet crying) and asked me what church I was going to. His following questions and diatribes led me to believe he knew the answer to this question before it was asked for the following reason: I was raised a Protestant and our mutual friend, ####### #######, was my teacher at the private Christian school I attended. When I decided to convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-​day Saints, the reaction of our small community was violent and became the subject of much conversation.
I responded to Dr. #######‘s question of where I went to church, despite its complete lack of relevance to my physical complaint and told him that I was LDS. He then replied flippantly, «How is that working out for you?» With a sneer, he went on to describe how one of his great-​grandmothers was supposedly one of Brigham Young’s wives and went on to mock my religious belief; all this while I was still crying, suffering physically and all this without having examined my person in the slightest degree.
After this bizarre episode, Dr. ####### said, «Well, it looks like you’re going to have a painful weekend» and left. No examination of my physical complaint, just harassment of a personal choice I had made and the infliction of emotional and psychological harm. To this day, I still get extremely nervous when seeing a new doctor. Oftentimes I have to ask for a receptacle to be sick in and I am always terrified that I will receive the same cruel treatment that I did at the hand of Dr. #######.
This however, is not the end of this horrible episode. Several days after this nightmare, out of the blue a third party specialist’s office contacted me to schedule an appointment. I asked them how they had gotten my information. They said that Dr. ####### had given it to them — my name, personal phone number and medical information. All this was done without my consent. If this does not constitute a violation of HIPAA laws, I do not know what does.