Updated: you are out of your mind

[specialp]

She did make arrangements... Her front desk called the patients to cancel and reschedule.

......

She didn't just decide not to come... She had the front desk call day before to cancel and reschedule the patients.

I'm not clear on this because in a follow up post, she says she wanted to reschedule on Wednesday, but the hospital would not let her. In the OP, it sounded like they were rescheduled and I thought that was why she was on some list now. Or is that she didn't show up and that's why. I'm not sure.

No they did not allow us to reschedule patients. That’s what I wanted to do on Wednesday afternoon but they wouldn’t allow it.

I do not think the clinic should've remained open with those weather conditions so long as the patients who were scheduled were reached and notified (and fine, not notified of a closing, but given the option to reschedule which most would.) I'm just not clear what happened.

[basil]

I'm not clear on this because in a follow up post, she says she wanted to reschedule on Wednesday, but the hospital would not let her. In the OP, it sounded like they were rescheduled and I thought that was why she was on some list now. Or is that she didn't show up and that's why. I'm not sure.



I do not think the clinic should've remained open with those weather conditions so long as the patients who were scheduled were reached and notified (and fine, not notified of a closing, but given the option to reschedule which most would.) I'm just not clear what happened.

I wanted to cancel clinic on Wednesday so that no staff/residents would need to come in. So staff called all patients and asked them if they would like to reschedule. All that were reached opted to reschedule. There were a number (3 out of 35) without working phone numbers. The option was 1) to leave those appointments on the schedule, make staff/physicians come in and see patients if they showed up, or 2) cancel clinic, forward phones to the on call physician located at the main hospital and no one come in. Hospital said we could not do #2. Even though we do that pretty routinely for other "emergencies" (physician has OR time, physician doesn't feel like doing it that day, resident has fellowship interview, etc.) and it's never been a big deal to remove patients from the schedule even if their phone doesn't work.

I'm not new to area, I'm not a wimp about driving in the snow, I just knew given the acuity of our appointments and our patient population, no one was showing up even on public transportation. And I was correct. If you imagine I were a dermatologist doing yearly mole checks, that would be a pretty reasonable corollary to the acuity of these appointments. We have about a 15-20% no show rate in good weather. As I said, my clinic is not located at the main hospital, so it is much less accessible by public transportation. I can unilaterally decide not to show up, other people do it all the time. And none of my partners came in either.

I agree rescheduling elective surgery can be hard, OR time is tight, and some patients would have shown up despite a storm, but this wasn't that.

The point was really not that I couldn't get used to working when there is bad weather. I am completely used to that. However, this was putting me, my family, my staff, my staff's families, my staff's childcare, my residents, my residents' families, my residents' childcare, the first responders who would have pulled any of us out of a ditch, the people who were waiting for the first responders to pull us out of a ditch while they had a heart attack, etc., etc., etc., all at risk for no benefit to anyone. No benefit to patients, no financial benefit to hospital (no patients showing up means no revenue no matter if you keep clinic open or not), and certainly no benefit to staff or physicians who made a dangerous drive for nothing. That's the point. The fact that the ICU and ER were staffed and people got dialysis is irrelevant.

[ChicagoNDMom]

I 100% think you are in the right Basil. The administration is being unreasonable. I am an internist BTW.

[hellokitty]

That's BS! Is there a policy regarding this? If not, it's time to have one, it sounds like you will be reported, I would double back with the fact that there should be a policy in place, especially since you are an OUTPATIENT CLINIC! You are not a level 1 trauma center! If the frickin' govenor says to stay home and not be on the roads, why does an outpatient clinic need to be open? Makes zero sense.

[trales]

All of our outpatient clinics were closed that day. We did not get a phone call (DH had an appointment) it was listed on TV with the school closings.

[KpbS]

I 100% think you are in the right Basil. The administration is being unreasonable.

That's BS! Is there a policy regarding this? If not, it's time to have one, it sounds like you will be reported, I would double back with the fact that there should be a policy in place, especially since you are an OUTPATIENT CLINIC! You are not a level 1 trauma center! If the frickin' govenor says to stay home and not be on the roads, why does an outpatient clinic need to be open? Makes zero sense.

[TwinFoxes]

Call me nosy, but I'd love an update on this. I think your managers are being completely unreasonable, and hopefully they'll realize this. As a patient, I think it'd be pretty obvious an outpatient clinic would be closed, and if I had an appointment, I'd certainly call before I schlepped over there in the middle of a dangerous storm.

[specialp]

Me, too. I would feel targeted if other doctors in the same practice were allowed to cancel for any reason but I wasn't for this which was affecting the entire region.

I would assume it was closed, but older patients are the ones I feel things like this are less obvious.

[basil]

Call me nosy, but I'd love an update on this. I think your managers are being completely unreasonable, and hopefully they'll realize this. As a patient, I think it'd be pretty obvious an outpatient clinic would be closed, and if I had an appointment, I'd certainly call before I schlepped over there in the middle of a dangerous storm.

I haven’t heard anything more than the vague threat passed down on Friday. My chief is back in town and hasn’t said anything. So either they didn’t contact him or they did and he disregarded. I have a regularly scheduled meeting with these people on Thursday. So we will see what they say then.

[TwinFoxes]

I haven’t heard anything more than the vague threat passed down on Friday. My chief is back in town and hasn’t said anything. So either they didn’t contact him or they did and he disregarded. I have a regularly scheduled meeting with these people on Thursday. So we will see what they say then.

Good luck...hopefully common sense prevails.