Please share your thoughts on this: Specialist says one thing, documents another

[Violet2]

I have been thinking of finding a new specialist and wonder how common this experience is.

In our second visit I addressed things the neurologist left out of his report from the first visit (mainly all the atypical stuff she did right in front of him and the resident.)

So the notes from the second visit come and they don't match anything we actually agreed on or discussed!

As in he told me a diagnosis (which I think is BS) and then didn't put it in his report. What is up with that?

The PT we agreed upon, he wrote we would do only if the falling continued. Which is not what we discussed and decided at all,we agreed to do PT now.

In talking to the PT office today, the notes are actually confusing them b/c it says one thing and we are doing another.

Have you experienced this? I am kind of irked. Am I right in feeling that this is probably a sign we should find a new specialist if we continue to need one (I am hoping the PT is the magic bullet)?

Or is this just par for the course? I am completely new to all this.

My concern is, if she has an ongoing, more serious pathology at play here that these notes are going to become an obstacle to appropriate medical care, kwim?

Please help me out mommas. I don't know what I am doing.

Thanks
V

[homemademomma]

You need to find a new specialist- that is totally inappropriate! You also need to make an appointment with this person specifically to go over the discrepancies. Bring a copy of his reports and go over everything with him.

[2boyzmama]

I have requested reports be corrected before. Usually the original report remains in the file, then an amended report ("as per request of mother") is added to the chart. One time a speech therapist got his eval all kinds of screwed up, it wasn't easily fixable, so I called the director, then came in with a highlighted, red-inked, and re-written report and we re-did the eval and got an amended report written.

Sometimes I have just written a short rebuttal and asked that it be included in his file (example...the report I received from the geneticist most recently voiced concern that Connor is not getting enough calcium or Vit D because he's dairy free, however his substitute milks are fortified to exactly the same daily allowance as milk. So I wrote that in a letter, faxed it to the dr, then called and spoke to the nurse who retrieved it from the fax machine and added it to his chart)

In my first example (the speech therapist) I immediately started looking elsewhere because I was concerned about their competence. In the second example, it was more or less a clarification, and didn't bother me enough to make me start looking elsewhere. You'll have to make that judgement call.

[samandhenrysmom]

I think this happens when professionals wait too long between seeing the patient and writing the documentation! It sounds sloppy to me and I would worry there would be more serious mistakes in the future.

[Violet2]

Thank you for all your input, it is really helpful to have others' perspectives on this.

I have a chronic illness and am at the doctor's/er/hospital a lot but no one ever sends me my file notes, so this is all new to me.

So now I need to come up with a letter that doesn't piss anyone off. Sigh.

V