From: forda@gtephx.UUCP (Andrew Ford @ AGCS, Phoenix, Arizona)
Subject: Re: wrong health care, and still having to pay for it
Keywords: misdiagnosis, malpractice, negligence, miscreant doctors
Organization: gte
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1992 22:29:51 GMT

In article <4034@novavax.UUCP>, vaccaro@novavax.UUCP (N. Trafford Vaccaro) writes:
> Hello, everyone,
> 
> You may have noticed the large number and variety of newsgroups I
> am posting this to. I am rather angry at being ripped off by 
> a small town medical operation in Winter Park, Colorado, called
> the "Seven Mile Clinic".
> 
> I was on a ski trip to Winter Park 6 years ago when I had to visit the
> Seven Mile Clinic. I had terrible abdominal pain, I could hardly
> walk, and I was chalk-white. They kept me there all day, until
> five o'clock. Then, they told me to leave. Just like that! One
> of the women that worked there told me to take aspirin.
> 
> That night, I requested an ambulance. Instead, the man at the front
> desk of the hotel we were staying at gave me a ride 14 miles to the
> emergency room of the nearest hospital. In the ER, it was discovered
> that I had a high white blood cell count and a possible obstruction
> of the bowl. The doctor on duty requested an ambulance to send me to
> Denver for further care. At the hospital in Denver, it was discovered
> that I had internal bleeding of the spleen, that it was swollen to
> four times its normal size, and that it had to be removed. I also
> had a collapsed lung. 
> 
> Several weeks later, the Seven Mile Clinic sent me a bill for $300.
> They did not refer me to another hospital, they did not give me
> advice other than to take pain medication, which I understand is
> not done for severe abdominal pain. The staff at the Seven Mile Clinic
> was incompetent and negligent, and I don't want to pay them. However,
> the smug doctor at the clinic said, "You'd better pay it, Charlie.".
> 
> Is there any recourse, or how do I get out of paying for shoddy work?
> If it were my car being repaired, I could contest the bill. 
> They kicked me out of their clinic, bleeding to death! And charged me
> $300! A collection agency now has the account. What should I do? Should
> I pay the bill, or take them to small claims?
> 
> 
> N.V.

Had they simply asked you to pay, I'd have suggested only calling the
state board of medical examiners (or whatever the state bureaucracy is
that licenses doctors.

Start there anyway.  File a complaint of malpractice and reckless
endangerment.

Then go get a good attorney and sue them for enough money that
they'll never even dream of doing that to someone else.

I don't ordinarily advocate large lawsuits, but when lives are at
stake (and if this behavior is not stopped, other lives may be
at stake -- lives for which you are morally responsible), you have
a moral responsibility to protect the lives of others.  

Also, you are entitled to file a statement on your credit report:
do so! inlcude what happened, the names of other doctors you saw
and, briefly, the treatment recv'd in Denver.  

In no case should you pay: the credit report is all they
can do, and with a statement of "the dirty b******s did not deliver 
the service they contracted to deliver and almost killed me!" that 
mark on your report won't mean a whole lot.

At least pursue a complaint with the medical revue board and 
an malpractice suit -- other people might die in that clinic
if you do not act to prevent such callous mistreatment.

-- 
"25 States allow anyone to buy a gun, strap it on, and walk down the street with
no permit of any kind: some say it's crazy.  However, 4 out of 5 US murders are 
committed in the other half of the country: so who is crazy?"   -  Andrew Ford
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