Went to my GP to get a referral for a minor procedure. Referral was sent to the surgery clinic (Western Health), I was told it takes about 5-7 days for the surgery to send a confirmation text and set up an appointment. It’s not urgent but needs to be done.
After about 2 weeks, hear nothing, call the surgery clinic, turns out they didn’t receive the referral. As GP to send another one, and now have to wait another 5-7 days to actually find out it was received.
So either the referral wasn’t faxed the first time OR it was misplaced at the receiving end.
I’m not really interested in investigating any further (like asking for sent receipts from my GP), but it’s pretty frustrating.
Private is not an option due to lack of insurance and costs unfortunately.
Monash Health never responded to my referal for surgery. It wasn’t until bitcoin went up and I decided to pay for it privately and they realised I’d been ignored for 2.5 years did they jump to action. My advice now is don’t trust referrals, pester them all the way through, they cannot be trusted. Anyone waiting on surgery/referral for over three months, go back to the gp and complain about symptoms, shit even try a new gp.
I have a friend who is a GP and partner in a medical centre. I dropped in to visit him once, and it was a real eye-opener as an IT person. Their IT was a shambles. The four senior Doctors have a share in the business and hire every other employee. They all had their own computers / not purchased through a central procurement point. The center itself had computers and a records system, but it was super basic in terms of what a real IT department would set up. Just PCs plugged into a central switch and a single server running whatever software the business runs on. It was a small business, basically. Security was not up to scratch (no firewall at all for internal traffic/ just the consumer grade router NATing external traffic). Email was just hosted with Microsoft 365 with an off-the-shelf config. Fax was literally the phone line plugged into the receptionists printer.
I assume they were great at the doctory bits. But their IT was amateur hour.
I should state that the patient records stuff was via some sort of cloud-based SaaS company accessed through a browser. No medical records were kept onsite.
have provided support for medical industry in the past. This is so accurate. Even when they did purchase a solution they’d hang onto it YEAR beyond what it was originally scoped for and still expect it to run like new.
Dumbest profession i ever supported TBH.
There are dumber. I supported an alliance of car yards. Those were the dumbest profession I ever supported. Managers who somehow failed upward into their roles and were dumber than a box a of hammers. Mechanics who had (and needed) Windows XP in the workshop. Car salespeople who would ignore everything in their email that wasn’t “I want to buy a car”, even if the message was as bold as possible “If you don’t click this button by x time your email will not work on Monday”. Guess how mad they were at me on Monday? 🙄
Yeah. I get human error. Happens and I get faxes are more secure than emails and such. But I’d be happy to wave my privacy rights for this occasion to ensure that the damn thing was actually sent and received.
Just got a message from the surgery clinic that this referral came through and I’ll hear from them shortly to book a consult and such.
Then the girl I spoke to earlier (and yesterday) rang me to ensure I got the message. I got her name and will email the clinic with glowing praise for her.
Bit of a rant coming up.
Went to my GP to get a referral for a minor procedure. Referral was sent to the surgery clinic (Western Health), I was told it takes about 5-7 days for the surgery to send a confirmation text and set up an appointment. It’s not urgent but needs to be done.
After about 2 weeks, hear nothing, call the surgery clinic, turns out they didn’t receive the referral. As GP to send another one, and now have to wait another 5-7 days to actually find out it was received.
So either the referral wasn’t faxed the first time OR it was misplaced at the receiving end.
I’m not really interested in investigating any further (like asking for sent receipts from my GP), but it’s pretty frustrating.
Private is not an option due to lack of insurance and costs unfortunately.
Monash Health never responded to my referal for surgery. It wasn’t until bitcoin went up and I decided to pay for it privately and they realised I’d been ignored for 2.5 years did they jump to action. My advice now is don’t trust referrals, pester them all the way through, they cannot be trusted. Anyone waiting on surgery/referral for over three months, go back to the gp and complain about symptoms, shit even try a new gp.
Solid advice. I know I’m in the ‘queue’ now but will keep following up with the surgical team.
If I get nothing in a week, I’m going back to my GP with ‘worse symptoms’.
Yup, their communication leaves a lot to be desired.
I’m kind of disappointed that my GP doesn’t have a follow up system themselves to ensure things are received.
Seems to be sorted now, but very frustrating.
I have a friend who is a GP and partner in a medical centre. I dropped in to visit him once, and it was a real eye-opener as an IT person. Their IT was a shambles. The four senior Doctors have a share in the business and hire every other employee. They all had their own computers / not purchased through a central procurement point. The center itself had computers and a records system, but it was super basic in terms of what a real IT department would set up. Just PCs plugged into a central switch and a single server running whatever software the business runs on. It was a small business, basically. Security was not up to scratch (no firewall at all for internal traffic/ just the consumer grade router NATing external traffic). Email was just hosted with Microsoft 365 with an off-the-shelf config. Fax was literally the phone line plugged into the receptionists printer.
I assume they were great at the doctory bits. But their IT was amateur hour.
That’s a real worry where sensitive medical data is concerned, and I have the feeling they’re not the only clinic like that
I should state that the patient records stuff was via some sort of cloud-based SaaS company accessed through a browser. No medical records were kept onsite.
have provided support for medical industry in the past. This is so accurate. Even when they did purchase a solution they’d hang onto it YEAR beyond what it was originally scoped for and still expect it to run like new. Dumbest profession i ever supported TBH.
There are dumber. I supported an alliance of car yards. Those were the dumbest profession I ever supported. Managers who somehow failed upward into their roles and were dumber than a box a of hammers. Mechanics who had (and needed) Windows XP in the workshop. Car salespeople who would ignore everything in their email that wasn’t “I want to buy a car”, even if the message was as bold as possible “If you don’t click this button by x time your email will not work on Monday”. Guess how mad they were at me on Monday? 🙄
whole thing feels so 80’s its nuts. Meanwhile they charge more and more for this shit experience.
Yeah. I get human error. Happens and I get faxes are more secure than emails and such. But I’d be happy to wave my privacy rights for this occasion to ensure that the damn thing was actually sent and received.
Just got a message from the surgery clinic that this referral came through and I’ll hear from them shortly to book a consult and such.
Then the girl I spoke to earlier (and yesterday) rang me to ensure I got the message. I got her name and will email the clinic with glowing praise for her.