u/picklevirgin

I’ve never been so frustrated with a healthcare system as I am with Lee Health.

No one I have reached out to answers phones, MyChart messages, responds to emails, or gets back to voicemails; or if they do, it takes weeks.

I have been beyond respectful, polite, and patient.

 I understand that Lee Health caters to hundreds of thousands of people. I come from a state where almost everyone, in said state, went to the same hospital network, and they ALWAYS got back to me by the end of the business day, whether that be a phone call, text, or MyChart.
 I understand Lee Health may be understaffed. But to just ignore my emails, MyChart messages, voicemails, phone calls?
In one office, it took them two weeks to get back to me. Others, zip, nada, not a peep.
What is the issue?
Am I doing something wrong?
How am I supposed to take care of my health if no one is responding?
It took me almost a week of calling to get this appointment. No one would answer, the phone would play the menu, I'd click a button, and then sit and wait for over 30 minutes before just giving up. Then, finally, someone actually answered the phone after 20 minutes.

The soonest they could get me in was an entire month out.
All I wanted was to see a psychiatrist and get prescribed a refill on a medication that I have been on for the past ten years. I have to be on this medicine to function like a normal human.
I called regarding an issue I saw with my insurance/billing (they conveniently sent me a MyChart bill right as they were closing the office yesterday), this morning at 8:05 AM, I waited for 45 minutes before an actual person answered the phone, told me they couldn’t help me but someone in finance would get back to me within 15 minutes whether that be a MyChart message or a phone call. 
My appointment was today. They had my updated insurance for over a month (that I gave over the phone and also personally updated in MyChart) and decided to, not so directly, let me know (through a MyChart message) the day before my appointment that they are having an issue with my insurance. They were not applying my insurance to my bill. 
Are you serious?
I contacted my insurance. There is no issue. My plan is active, my plan completely covers the appointment I had scheduled, and the provider I was seeing accepted my exact insurance plan. I had at least three different customer service reps from my insurance company, and a supervisor (who I didn’t ask for, but appreciate), assured me that everything in my insurance was perfect. 
Why?
Is this acceptable?
Am I asking for too much to have basic communication in a timely manner?
Again, I understand they are busy. Maybe I’ll have to wait a few days before someone gets back to me about a message regarding scheduling an appointment I sent in MyChart. It’s annoying but I’ll live.
But to let me know the day before my appointment that something isn’t right? And to do so at a time that I cannot call and rectify the situation?
How am I supposed to feel safe with my health in this system's hands?

They had a month to look at my insurance and verify everything. They had a month during which, if they found any issue, they could have contacted my insurance company and me. They had a month to determine whether or not my insurance was still going to be accepted through that provider.

Do they not verify anything until the day before?

Am I just not deserving of getting healthcare within Lee Health?
How am I supposed to get quality healthcare if no one is communicating with me?
I am trying so hard to be understanding, but am I asking for too much?

At this point I'm just going to start finding providers outside of the Lee Health system. I wanted to have everything in one system, like MyChart, to make everything easier on everyone involved. I guess that was dumb on my part.

,

Sometimes I want to apologize to people who had to “deal with me”, before I was diagnosed and being treated. I want to apologize because I know I was difficult to be around. I was diagnosed at 17 and while part of me thinks “well everyone was equally Or more terrible to me and none of them will apologize for it.” I still feel the need too. I feel guilty for how I behaved before I was diagnosed. I know I wasn’t easy to be around. Hell, I had a lot of people tell me I was difficult to be around. I’m sure very few even remember it, but I do.

My birth giver is a perpetual victim. *Everyone is oh so mean to her. She tries so hard to be a good person. Her life is so hard. No one knows her heart.*

But will turn around and say the most racist, homophobic, offensive shit I’ve ever heard in my life. But I can’t call her out on it, then she starts crying and playing victim. I can’t tell her calling Hispanic people by slurs is racist because she pulls out the “I didn’t mean it like that and you’re being mean making me try to feel like a bad person.”

She talks about how people have screwed her over. But when I hear her talk about it, it’s clear she is the one in the wrong. But she can’t admit that or her whole story falls apart.

She can’t admit she walked out of her own children and didn’t talk to us for years. If you ask her about it “I had to work on myself, you don’t know how hard that was.”

She can’t admit she lost custody of her children because of her drug abuse, “your dad was so cruel to take you guys away from me! I did nothing wrong!” Ma’am, you were an addict on a really hard substance and you left your “tools” out for display.

I hate that I live with her currently due to this horrible economy. I hate that I can’t escape her because of how bad the job market currently is. I wish some miracle would take place that I can have the means financially to get away from her.

I just don’t get why some people on the internet get so bothered by a harmless opinion. They can take and twist your words. I’ve had people send me death threats because they didn’t like or agree with my harmless opinion. Everyone is allowed to have an opinion, everyone is allowed to have an opinion on someone else’s opinion. But it’s not okay to threaten someone else. It’s not okay to want someone else to no longer be alive because they don’t like the same band as you do.

I just don’t get why some people on the internet get so bothered by a harmless opinion. They can take and twist your words. I’ve had people send me death threats because they didn’t like or agree with my harmless opinion. Everyone is allowed to have an opinion, everyone is allowed to have an opinion on someone else’s opinion. But it’s not okay to threaten someone else. It’s not okay to want someone else to no longer be alive because they don’t like the same band as you do.