So yesterday I had an appointment with my Endocrinologist. Since coming to Dr. M, this is the first time I have actually gotten blood work results from him, so I was curious. Mind you not worried, I know roughly where I should be and that there shouldn’t be any major surprises.
Going to the appointment, which was at 2:45, I arrived at 2:30 since I had a new insurance card, new address, contact info and stuff like that. THE OFFICE was PACKED. Mind you, there are other Doctor’s in the practice so it was all good. I kept waited, so while I was waiting, I played Tiny Wings on my phone, but also had text conversations with Kim, Sara, Jess, and Tina (AKA Christina). It wasn’t all bad, but the wait time to me was intolerable this time. I mean I know Sara has had lengthy waits, but my first wait for Dr. M. was about 5/10 minutes. This time not so much.
I want to say I waited about 50 or minutes before I even saw him. I did the math. My co-pay is $25, I saw him for about 20 minutes, if I was lucky. So I paid him about 1.25 a minute. That doesn’t even include what my insurance company pays. We had a great conversation about everything. I mean he is a fast talker, but we still talked about stuff. We talked about my cereal issues, he was stumped, he asked if I changed cereals? Nope. Did I try this? Yep. How about this? Yep. This?? Duh. Oh…. well have you tried other things. Yes, I can eat 47 waffles, covered in peanut butter or butter, and nail them spot on, but cereal, not so much. His suggestion keep trying or enjoy my waffles. (We were joking at that point obviously).
We spoke about my test results, which we fine. My weight, my cholesterol, my a1c were pretty much consistent with my last results, and the results before that. My LDL is slightly elevated, but I am gonna work on that. Otherwise, there were no concerns. We spoke about the difference between insulin’s and his opinion on them. Honestly, he said at this point the differences between lets say Novolog and Apidra are minimal. The main thing being that maybe Apidra works slightly faster, but he is saying by minutes on either end. So he seriously said, if I wanted to I could experiment, but honestly why with what I am showing him.
So we setup my next appointment, I aimed for earlier in the day, right after lunch to be able to get in and out and left.
I sat in my car and looked at the copy of my lab work, the second page cracked me up.
Apparently, Labcorp has a generic form, I get it. Based upon where my a1c is or range it falls, I am at an increased risk of developing diabetes… Son of a biscuit. REALLY? I’m at an increased risk??? I am pretty sure it’s a little late for that. I gave up telling people what my actual number is for lent. Karen and Kerri know why.
So that was my endo visit. I know I am still not on my Friends for Life update. Honestly with how things have been, I haven’t had the time to do things justice on that end.
On a side note, I have decided I want to send a bill to my Endocrinologist’s office. You know the entire you will be charged a cancellation fee policy, I am charging him a late fee.
While I value my time, I am not an M.D. so I am only going to charge him $1 a minute for my wasted time. So that’s $60 plus add in the delay fee of $30 and the excess waiting fee of $10, he owes me $100! I wonder what he would do if he got that in the mail…
Take care people.
(Buzz, Buzz) Not My Cell 
It’s the little things like that to make us giggle a bit. Like when you go into the endo and they ask if you’ve had any lows. major LOLS!
“son of a biscuit!” You’re awesome!
And at the way these folks treat us like an overdue book at a library it’s preposterous that we can’t do anything but sit there and twiddle our thumbs… or play games… or text…..
Send the letter… DO EEEET!
Devil’s Advocate you are.
My clinic’s system works with flags and always flags me as “at risk for diabetes.”
When you look at everyone’s monetized time it’s interesting… I’m sure that my doctor would not want the bill for the $100+ per hour clients pay for my work! Because that’s what my office misses out on when I’m stuck in a doctor’s waiting room
It is truly, truly sad. Yet it is what it is.
You should really get that diabetes thing checked out.
I will eventually. I mean, especially if it’s the bad kind…
It’s ok that you weren’t texting me. I don’t feel left out at all. I promise.
Mia culpa. I would have, but well with your new found popularity and the fact everyone has your phone, I worried you would be to busy for me… :-p
I have an endo appointment on Thursday for the first time in a long time, and if I have to wait for any extended period of time, I’m so creating an invoice and sending it to her… of course, I guess that means I should be on time myself. Thanks for the post, Brian.
That would be pretty cool if we could do that though.
Curious if your doctors office has a sign that says “please turn off all cellular devices”. Mine does and I always giggle at it – they are always behind what do they expect us to do while we wait?
You totally need to send that bill along with feedback about the visit. I get an email asking me for feedback after each visit. My feedback always includes “if the wait time will be over 45 min. past appointment time have an automated system text patients of the delay”. Surely there is an app for that.
Always a good idea to have first appointment of the day or first after lunch.
Interesting that the doctor said there are very few differences between insulins. My kids doctor insisted the same and on a molecular level it might be very true – the thing is I believe different insulins work differently in the body. Huma works great for many of my friends but didn’t work well for my son. I think if your doctor is willing to prescribe different insulins – trying them could be beneficial.
It does, I ignored it.
Oh Brian, I am so sorry to hear about the bad lab results. I hate knowing you’re at an increased risk for diabetes. Maybe it will be years before anything happens. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. I’d hate to hear you had “full-blown” diabetes.
I am very saddened. 😦
Hate to break it to you, but you have the diabetes!
pretty much. I think it’s the bad kind too…
You can eat 47 waffles??
I can also eat an entire pizza. I don’t brag about it, but yeah I can do this. Granted by waffle 25, I might regret my decision.
Haha, you don’t regret it until waffle 25?! Impressive 😉 We should totally start charging doctors…especially diabetic patients because we see way too many doctors to be waiting so long in the waiting room-it adds up!
Glad I would never really eat that many waffles though.
I admit it, I LOL at the Labcorp page! That’s great! Perhaps the DOC can develop a great invoice to send endo’s who keep us waiting long periods of time. :p
If only it would work that way, things would be so much easier.