Need to vent

[nyssaneala]

I can't talk to anyone irl about this, but god, I need to vent.

DH is a doctor. A few months ago he had a needle jab while operating. Followed hospital protocol and had his blood drawn. Promptly forgot about it.

Last week, we got a bill in the mail from the hospital, saying we had no insurance on file and charging $300 for an ER visit for what should be a workers comp. issue. (yes, these things happen to doctors too!) Funny, considering he works at the hospital and most definitely has health insurance!

Yesterday, he spent 2 hours at the hospital trying to resolve this issue. No one could find the incident report. During the process, the administrator looked up the patient he had been operating on at the time to see if they could find the report that way.

Turns out, patient has Hep. C, as hospital protocol also tests patient's for blood-transmitted disease when there is a needle jab. I don't know any other info due to HIPAA. DH was promptly sent to the lab to have his blood checked again, since neither incident report or lab results are anywhere to be found. WHERE WAS HOSPITAL PROTOCOL IN INFORMING HIM OF THIS FACT AND, UM, NOT LOSING HIS LAB WORK????? It's a total fluke that he even found out, which makes me very, very mad.

We're waiting for the results. If he turns up positive, I will have to go and get tested.

I'm trying not to flip out in advance. I'm also very thankful right now that I am not pregnant or currently breastfeeding.

ETA: I've taken out all identifying info from my profile and signature, so I'll probably only keep this post up for a few days.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

I'm so sorry!  That's awful!  I hope everything turns out to be OK. 

[mumkimum]

My dh is a Rn and has had at least one needlestick incident -- it was stressful enough for us without the kind of mistakes happening that you've ended up with. I'm sorry you're having to deal with that too.

If there's a hospital ombudsman, that might be a resource to complain to and help figure out what actually went wrong, with a loss of results and etc.

[nyssaneala]

The labs came back negative. Phew. He has to get another round of bloodwork in a few months, but things are looking better than they did last week.

Thanks for the support!

[artekah]

Glad to hear the test was neg!!!