My Opthamology Visit- What the?!

[isisdave]

It really varies a lot. We have a friend who's a nurse practitioner, 30 years experience, and is NOT in a hurry to get you out the door. Great care. OTOH, I had a PA tell me that my ruptured quad tendons were "just a sprain" without even touching my knee. Next day, I was sitting on the exam table of a great orthopedist. I was wearing shorts. He entered the room and said "oh, I see you've ruptured your quad tendon" and proceeded to show me how he could tell from across the room. It mostly came down to "I've seen a hundred of these."

 

[bogey21]

The first doctor he saw there wasn't a good experience but fortunately he was knowledgeable enough about his eyes to know that he needed to find someone else and he did.

Seems to me that what this doctor did was professional and better than faking it...

George

 

[Jan M.]

Seems to me that what this doctor did was professional and better than faking it...

George

I should have worded what I said better. It was our son who was knowledgeable enough about his own eye condition and how bad it is. Not that doctor and his staff.

Our son wears the gas permeable contacts and was due for a new prescription. When he gets a new prescription he waits about six months to have them order a second pair with the new prescription. When he goes in to pick up the second pair and get the fit checked he leaves the first pair to be sent to the lab to be cleaned and polished. It removes the build up that regular cleaning doesn't and reduces the chance of eye infections. Thanks to miserable allergies in the springtime he's had a few eye infections and with his eyes even a minor problem is a big deal. The contacts can only be cleaned like that so many times before they have to be replaced. However by the time they can't be cleaned again he needs his eyes re-examined and refitted for new contacts anyhow. Because of his eye condition being fitted by a contact specialist is critical not only for him to be able to see but also to keep his eyes from getting worse. He needed an appointment with the opthamologist to get a referral to a contact specialist. At every step, when he called to make the appointment, when he was examined by the tech and when the doctor came in to see him, he explained that the reason for his visit was because he has keratoconus and it's bad. The receptionist insisted that the doctor specialized in keratoconus. The tech insisted that the machine eye exam was perfectly fine for his contact prescription. But worst of all the doctor upon examining him announced "You have keratoconus!" Like it wasn't on the chart, our son hadn't just told him that and that by some miracle our son was blissfully unaware that he has it and how bad it is. He is perilously close to losing his vision in one eye and at that time if his eye got any worse the only thing left to do for it was a cornea transplant. When our son attempted to discuss a treatment plan and the new procedure that was expected to be approved very soon it became clear that this doctor was way out of his area of expertise.

Our son called his insurance company, related what had happened and told them he was taking a vacation day and driving the three hours each way to see his previous opthamologist and contact specialist. That opthamologist is the one who sent him to one of the top contact specialists in the country and saved his eyesight in his worst eye. He told his insurance company that he expected the visit to be covered even though it was out of his area of coverage until he could find someone to see who was actually qualified to deal with his eyes. His previous eye doctor upon hearing about his experience made some calls and found our son a different doctor at the Cleveland Clinic who was actually was a specialist in dealing with keratoconus. The opthamologist he now sees has been excellent. This doctor advised our son to wait until he himself had more experience with this new procedure that by then had finally approved in this country. He told our son that it had only been done a handful of times and he had been the one to do several of them.