As someone whose health is not what it used to be—in truth it was never particularly great given that I have asthma since the age of twelve—I get to experience the joys of health provider bureaucracies on a monthly if not a weekly basis these days. This week the bureaucratic joy I did not enjoy was yet another cancellation of an appointment I made and the arbitrary reassignment of my visit to the doctor to another day and time slot by a bureaucrat at the Bone and Joint Center in Albany, New York.
A bit of backstory. I have long had muscle and back issues. Some of this is undoubtedly do to poor picking up heavy items practises, the impact of my asthma on my muscles and back, aging, and the fact that I did not have a car for some twenty years and my body served as a pack mule for carrying groceries home from the store during those years. As a result, I had to eventually see a back doctor some seven or eight years ago just after I had a hip replacement. One day while seeing my hip doctor at the Bone and Joint Center the x-ray I had to see how my hip was doing revealed that I had arthritis in my back. My hip doctor recommended I see Dr. Riccio, a back doctor at the Bone and Joint Center in Albany.
Riccio diagnosed my with arthritis in my back. He prescribed cyclobenzaprine for my back problem just as my GP, Dr. Walsh, did before him. It helped but there are, as there is with so many of the medicines allopathic doctors prescribe these days, issues with cyclobenzaprine, He also told me that cortisone shots would probably help. As someone who used cortisone when it was the most effective medicine for treating asthma back in the 1960s and knew the side effects and limitations of cortisone, however, I demurred cortisone treatment. Short term fixes are like heroin—or so I assume. They are short term fixes that last for a short period of time kind and then reality sets in and hits your harder than it did before.
Recently I have been having more muscle and lower back pain. Fearful that my left hip—the one that was replaced—and now my right hip as well might have gone bad bad—I went to see my hip doctor, well a new hip doctor since Dr. Fuch’s had retired, the fourth of my many doctors to retire or leave their practisea in the last five years. Before leaving the Bone and Joint Center I made an appointment to see Riccio again on 20 September at 12:15 pm for my back problems.
I chose the 12:15 pm appointment slot because I live near the Albany Veterans Hospital, Albany Medical Center, and St. Peter’s Medical Center and the traffic during rush hour is murder on the street that I live. On occasion, I even have a problem moving the car at all because the traffic is so heavy and not every driver is willing to give you space to move your car into heavy traffic. So, long story short, I make appointments at times that allow me to avoid the traffic.
Well this week I received an email from a bureaucrat at the Albany Bone and Joint Center indicating that my appointment had been moved from September to October and from 12:15 pm to 8:00 am, rush hour all without consulting me. The change was made solely on the basis of bureaucratic whim as far as I can tell. This has the whiff of monarchy about it doesn’t it?
Now I wouldn’t mind going to the doctor at 8 am if the traffic wasn’t a problem where I live. I didn’t mind the change from September to October either. What I did mind is being arbitrarily given an appointment at exactly the time I did not want it, rush hour. I thus cancelled my appointment and will see if I can transfer my business to a doctor at Albany Med. At least I can walk to Albany Med on most days and can be there in fifteen to twenty minutes and don’t have to worry about traffic. And while I don’t like bureaucracies and the one size fits all arbitrariness of bureaucracies, at least getting to Albany Med is less painful than driving three or four miles, sometimes through traffic, to the Bone and Joint Center.
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