My son had a doctor’s appointment today. We had been wanting to get scheduled for a new patient intake with this doctor and I knew it was hard to get in quickly with him so I was pleased when I called and got in on a recent cancellation. When I made the appointment they took my credit card and told me that there was a twenty-four hour cancellation policy and if we didn’t cancel within that window, the full visit charge of $400 would be charged to my credit card.
I didn’t have a problem with the policy because we were keeping the appointment. We needed the appointment and had no need to cancel. Then everyone got what we think in Influenza B from what my husband has looked up online. Although it could be Influenza A because we have some doctors as parents at our school and when they got sick they made sure they knew what it was.
My son got it first but recovered. We didn’t even think it was the flu (and I’m still not sure it is, truthfully). We were going to send him to school on Friday because he was fine but there’s a “fever free” policy you have to adhere to, keeping a child home even if they may be okay, to protect other students and teachers from catching what they had. Because of that, we kept him home.
But he was fine for that Monday appointment; there was no need to cancel, all was well. Then things went south this weekend. My son’s fever came back, my husband was miserable and exhausted and my daughter’s fever came back. My son got a bad cough we could barely control with cough medicine and my daughter’s nose was in need of blowing constantly. Then my husband got congestion in his lower chest. And everyone had a fever.
Fever’s ranged from 102 down, coming and going in an unpredictable pattern. This morning I checked the children’s temperatures again. My son was back to 102.3 and my daughter was 100.7. Ad eight o’clock I called the doctor’s office and explained about the family having the flu and we didn’t feel it was good to come in and could they waive the cancellation fee.
Well, no, they couldn’t, said the person at the front desk because it was policy. She transferred me to someone in billing. I explained our situation and the lady told me that since I’d explained it, they wouldn’t charge my credit card, but that it would be due before we made another appointment. I said I didn’t mind paying in advance for the rescheduled appointment (I was going to pay it at time of service, but because we’d cancelled, I understood why they would want to do so.). She said fine. Then I said, “so can we go ahead and reschedule now?”
She said, well yes, but you’ll have to pay the cancellation fee first. She explained (and I’ll summarize here) that if we ever wanted to see this doctor (this was an intake appointment) that we would have to pay the $400 cancellation penalty before they would schedule for him again.
I said, “are you telling me the only choices I have are to bring my entire sick family in today—because I will have to bring my daughter who is sick and out of school too—to have my son evaluated when he is sick with a fever, or I have to pay $400 to reschedule? She said yes. I said that in that case I would bring everyone in, sick, to their office, with an aggressive and contagious virus.
I had paperwork I needed to email to the office. I scanned it in, sent an email and explained that we would all be in at 2:40, sick with the flu, because we were left with little choice given the zero tolerance cancellation policy they had. I would medicate my son to try and control his cough and reduce his fever so he could be evaluated.
I was mad. I don’t usually get mad like this. And let me say that I completely agree with charging for cancellations. I hate wasting people’s time and I don’t like my time wasted either. But this didn’t seem to be a wise choice for their office to make.
I told my son we had to go. He was upset. He said, “I’m sick. I’m suppose to be resting. I’m going to tell that doctor he should be fired!” I told him (I was still mad at this point), “go right ahead”. He complained and said I should cancel. I told him we couldn’t because it was going to cost $400 if we did and I was sorry, but we were all going.
Later I calmed down and talked to my son, telling him I knew he was upset, but it was important for him to go in and answer the doctor’s questions as best he could, that it was important and the doctor wanted to help us and him and we wanted to do the best we could so he could make good recommendations. My son understood, but he was still upset. He was in a ball on the floor in the living room under a blanket. He’d gone back to bed this morning after breakfast because he felt so bad, and he doesn’t do that.
We medicated everyone for fever and cough before leaving and then went to the appointment. I told my husband I wasn’t going to say anything until the end of the appointment, because we really did want help and it wasn’t their fault we were sick. The doctor came out and I said I wasn’t going to shake hands because we were sick. I said we had to bring his sister because she was out of school sick as well. And Dr. Snow didn’t mind.
We had a nice appointment. My daughter being there almost helped things because my son and she got involved with something on her iPad and he didn’t pay attention while we talked about him and answered questions. Dr. Snow had some recommendations we could start now as opposed to waiting several weeks when we would have been able to get back on his schedule.
I mentioned at the end rather casually about sorry for coming in sick, but when faced with the cancellation policy we decided to all come in and to please sanitize everything we’d touched because I didn’t want him to get what we had. He said he had heard about what happened and he was going to have a talk with his staff. That that should not have happened and he would not have charged us the cancellation fee.
In the end, I’m glad we went in. And I do really hope they don’t get sick. I tried to touch as little as possible, although my children were bouncing around his office in the way sick children do after being given a dose of ibuprofen and their fevers abate for a few hours. We’re back home now and they’re both on the floor again, lying with blankets over them, watching (or listening) to something on their iPads.
The Big Boy Update: My son’s throat was hurting two nights ago. He was making these coughing, retching noises trying to get it out. I was afraid he had strep throat from the way he was going on. He described it by saying, “there’s a booger in my throat.”
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter’s vision is always questionable. Sometimes we think she’s almost completely blind. But then sometimes she’ll say or do something that shows what she can see. Last week with her iPad she held it up and said, “why can’t I see the screen?” I thought, “oh no, it’s gotten even worse” but my fears abated when she followed up the next moment with the words, “oh, never mind, I can” as she found what she was looking for and tapped the screen.
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