More of how the Veterans Administration West LA Medical Center sucks.
I am mailing this letter tomorrow:
June 10, 2022
Honorable Denis Richard McDonough
Dear Secretary McDonough,
I want to personally thank you for the utter incompetence of the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. What I’ve seen over the last few weeks boggles the mind.
Let’s begin with what happened today, although its origins are in what occurred last month. I had been scheduled to report to the VA Medical Center on a Friday morning to be admitted for the weekend. The purpose of the admission was to begin treatment with a prescription medication that I’ve never used before. In order to begin this medication, the patient must be on a heart monitor during the first six doses.
I arrived on time, waited almost two full hours only to learn that the physician who had arranged my admission had not even bothered to write the orders for my admission and the prescription itself. So I left.
I was contacted by the Cardiology Clinic to reschedule this admission. I went over my prior experience and was assured there would be no problems this time. I agreed to try again and the admission was scheduled for today. I again arranged to have Friday and Monday off, and to pay for extra hours for my mother’s caregivers to be on-hand during the hours I normally handle things my 83 year old mother needs.
I arrived at 9 a.m. and was assured that the doctor’s orders for the admission and the prescription had been written, and were in the system. A little over three hours later I was approached by a case-manager. She left me know that there was no bed available for me today. When I asked how this could have happened, she told me that the Cardiology clinic had not let her office know that I was scheduled to be admitted today.
I was and remain livid over this fiasco. Over the loss of hundreds of dollars in wages. Over the inability of one office to communicate with another in the Medical Center. They have computers, instant messaging, phones and so on and yet there was another communication breakdown that wasted my time and money.
The case-manager asked me if I was going to call the doctor later. I said I was not going to be calling. When she looked at me quizzically, I let her know that in my mind there is no point in making that call.
This comes on the heels of the inability of the Primary Care Clinic’s Silver Team to refill my prescriptions on a timely basis. I have been without the medication that enables me to sleep for more than two hours at a stretch. I called everyone I could think of about this problem. I had sent instant messages to my primary care physician in March, May and June about this. I did receive an apologetic phone call from a doctor under my primary care physician’s supervision who said he was refilling my prescriptions. However, I just checked the website and can see that he did NOT refill my sleep medication.
The quality of care being provided at the West LA VA Medical Center as of this date is abysmal. What are you going to do about it?
Sincerely,
June 10, 2022
Honorable Denis Richard McDonough
Dear Secretary McDonough,
I want to personally thank you for the utter incompetence of the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center. What I’ve seen over the last few weeks boggles the mind.
Let’s begin with what happened today, although its origins are in what occurred last month. I had been scheduled to report to the VA Medical Center on a Friday morning to be admitted for the weekend. The purpose of the admission was to begin treatment with a prescription medication that I’ve never used before. In order to begin this medication, the patient must be on a heart monitor during the first six doses.
I arrived on time, waited almost two full hours only to learn that the physician who had arranged my admission had not even bothered to write the orders for my admission and the prescription itself. So I left.
I was contacted by the Cardiology Clinic to reschedule this admission. I went over my prior experience and was assured there would be no problems this time. I agreed to try again and the admission was scheduled for today. I again arranged to have Friday and Monday off, and to pay for extra hours for my mother’s caregivers to be on-hand during the hours I normally handle things my 83 year old mother needs.
I arrived at 9 a.m. and was assured that the doctor’s orders for the admission and the prescription had been written, and were in the system. A little over three hours later I was approached by a case-manager. She left me know that there was no bed available for me today. When I asked how this could have happened, she told me that the Cardiology clinic had not let her office know that I was scheduled to be admitted today.
I was and remain livid over this fiasco. Over the loss of hundreds of dollars in wages. Over the inability of one office to communicate with another in the Medical Center. They have computers, instant messaging, phones and so on and yet there was another communication breakdown that wasted my time and money.
The case-manager asked me if I was going to call the doctor later. I said I was not going to be calling. When she looked at me quizzically, I let her know that in my mind there is no point in making that call.
This comes on the heels of the inability of the Primary Care Clinic’s Silver Team to refill my prescriptions on a timely basis. I have been without the medication that enables me to sleep for more than two hours at a stretch. I called everyone I could think of about this problem. I had sent instant messages to my primary care physician in March, May and June about this. I did receive an apologetic phone call from a doctor under my primary care physician’s supervision who said he was refilling my prescriptions. However, I just checked the website and can see that he did NOT refill my sleep medication.
The quality of care being provided at the West LA VA Medical Center as of this date is abysmal. What are you going to do about it?
Sincerely,
posted by me at 1:30 PM
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