I just had a patient call. He claimed to be a patient of mine when I was employed by another group. He told my staff that he just left the hospital and has a kidney stone. He said he was a self-pay, did not ask for the fee, and said he'd be right over. He did give his name.
When my staff told me about it, my own mental alarms began to sound. First of all, the name he gave me was a name I remembered from my past and it was the name of one of my old, arch-enemy drug seekers. Four or 5 years ago, this guy got me good with several 2 and 3AM phone calls for refills or new narcotics prescriptions and a feeling as if I had been victimized.
As per our usual custom with ER patients, we called the hospital, the one in which this man reported having spent the prior evening, and the hospital in turn reported having no record of his visit.
Now my alarm bell was sounding in full force.
Several minutes later he showed up. . .and my staff recognized his face. They called me and I recognized him as well. I had seen him within the past year or so. While I have trouble with names, I rarely forget a face. I remembered this man as someone whose behavior prompted me to write a blog post about drug seekers. But I could not recall his name now.
My staff began to rifle through our new patient records, but we have way too many new patients to locate one by shear memory. We needed a time reference as to when he was here as a patient.
So I used to blog search feature on Google blogger, typed in "drug seeker", found the post and the date posted, went to that date in the book and voila, I recognized the name. Moments later I had his medical record opened and found that the drug seeker in March was the very same person as the man who was standing now in my waiting room.
Everything was crystal clear.
Needless to say, I sent him away empty handed.
GALL !!!
When my staff told me about it, my own mental alarms began to sound. First of all, the name he gave me was a name I remembered from my past and it was the name of one of my old, arch-enemy drug seekers. Four or 5 years ago, this guy got me good with several 2 and 3AM phone calls for refills or new narcotics prescriptions and a feeling as if I had been victimized.
As per our usual custom with ER patients, we called the hospital, the one in which this man reported having spent the prior evening, and the hospital in turn reported having no record of his visit.
Now my alarm bell was sounding in full force.
Several minutes later he showed up. . .and my staff recognized his face. They called me and I recognized him as well. I had seen him within the past year or so. While I have trouble with names, I rarely forget a face. I remembered this man as someone whose behavior prompted me to write a blog post about drug seekers. But I could not recall his name now.
My staff began to rifle through our new patient records, but we have way too many new patients to locate one by shear memory. We needed a time reference as to when he was here as a patient.
So I used to blog search feature on Google blogger, typed in "drug seeker", found the post and the date posted, went to that date in the book and voila, I recognized the name. Moments later I had his medical record opened and found that the drug seeker in March was the very same person as the man who was standing now in my waiting room.
Everything was crystal clear.
Needless to say, I sent him away empty handed.
GALL !!!
