Tanya Mercier My mom was scheduled to be seen in the Valley location on Thursday 12/12/24 but did not get to be seen because of incompetent treatment by staff at both the Valley and Spokane locations.
My mom is 77 years old with dementia and numerous other health conditions. She is still very independent but relies on medical transportation to get to and from her home to medical appointments. She also lives in a very rural area and on a good weather day getting to Spokane can take an hour and to the Spokane Valley at least 1.5 hours. There is a lot of coordination that goes into ensuring she can get to the various medical appointments.
For the 12/12/24 appointment, my mom arrived early to the Valley location and when she checked in she was told that she did not have an appointment there but rather at the Spokane location. Luckily the transport driver was able to get her back to the Spokane location in time for an appointment there but when she checked in she was again told that she did not have an appointment in that location. It took staff 30 minutes to figure out what the problem was but discovered too late that the appointment was actually at the Valley location. Needless to say, my mom did not get to see a doctor that she had waited months to see. Then the staff rescheduled the appointment for the following week but for 7am, telling my mom that was the only appointment available for months. With the help of the medical transport staff, the appointment was rescheduled although it was not clear if the transport staff was actually going to be able to get my mom to the new appointment.
Once I found out about what happened, I called Spokane Digestive and requested/demanded that the Office Manager call me back so the appointment could be rescheduled for a time that was actually feasible for my mom to get to. No one bothered to call me back, so on Monday 12/16 I called the appointment scheduler and explained the situation and they were eventually able to get my mom an appointment for later this week in the afternoon.
It is concerning the indifference that office staff express toward the people they are supposed to be serving. My mother was treated as though she had done something wrong. As well, staff seem to have little regard for the reality that people cannot just pivot and make due with whatever resolution they haphazardly cobble together.
1 /5
D D They need to work on their scheduling in all departments and offices. Return call protocol. Also, proper verbiage when annotations are noted in patient files regarding their past and present information, treatment, etc.
4 /5