Rose Medical Center

Reviews 3

A

A Private User

I just got back from my appointment getting an MRI at Rose Medical Center Outpatient Imaging. The summary of the visit is that they put a ton of effort into covering their legal and financial risk in dealing with patients, and they spend little time engaging with the patient in the actual service they are performing. It may just be the system in general but if I need an MRI again I am not going back there. Making the appointment was not easy, with the presumption that the appointment should be at the facilitys convenience and not mine. They suggested I block out 3.5 hours for the procedure. This ended up wasting the entire morning for me when the procedure ended in less than 2 hours. While i was glad to be out of there it meant I had waste the rest of the morning. Prior to the appointment I received two separate calls for pre-registration. Of course these calls were merely to validate my insurance information. I learned this when I arrived at the facility and had 8 pages of forms to deal with, including a three page single spaced contract. Of course the forms are repetitive. But everyone wants a separate waiver, I guess. And it especially important for the facility to know whether I might be pregnant. Anything is possible, I suppose. Especially with respect to the three page single spaced contract, I would really appreciate having that ahead of time. I sat there and read it, and I had some questions, but no one to pose them to. In fact with that document in particular I really resented how it was handled. I was handed just the signature page and told quickly to sign it here here and here, its about privacy. I had to ask for the other two pages, and learned that it was a fairly comprehensive surrender of my rights to the facility. So with almost no wait :) I was asked to change clothes and then proceeded to another room where I would be injected with an isotope. Wait, another form first. Brian and Linda tried to be nice although I was a bit grouchy from all the forms. After the injection I was wheeled to room with the MRI machine. This is where a lot more information would have been very helpful. Walking in I was asked what kind of music I wanted. No list, no actual choices offered. I was put on the machine, and because the exam was of my hip I was told I could have my choice of Gitmo stress positions for my arms - either above my head or across my chest, immobile for the duration. At no time was the length of the exam discussed. 30 minutes later, my shoulders screaming in pain, the MRI ended, and I was shown the door. From start to finish there was very little interest in me as a person - I felt more like a slab of meat with an insurance card. I would feel differently if the majority of my interaction with the staff was medical and not risk management or financial management, and if the conversations were about discussing the procedure, and not how I was going to pay for it. UPDATE Last week I received the only follow up on my visit. A single spaced letter from accounts payable discussing how they approach getting paid. If I have any questions I can call customer service. They appear to have lost sight of the important distinction between patient and customer, and forgotten all about the patient. UPDATE The purpose of my visit was a hip MRI. Just got the EOB and bill on the same day. Wow. The bill is not itemized, but here are the amounts: Health Service $4645.00 Writeoff $1997.35 Insurance Payment $1718.12 Deductible Due $500 Coinsurance Due $429.53 So my out of pocket for this experience is $929.53.

AM

Amanda Baxter

My experience with Rose last week was pretty darn wonderful. I have pretty bad history of spinal injuries that I deal with very well as far as pain. A Motrin every now and then, but thats about it. So I very rarely go to the doctor, let alone the hospital other than for the delivery of my children (who were all three born at Rose)! Well I woke up with TERRIBLE neck, shoulder, elbow, and wrist pain about a week and a half ago. I called my insurance to see who my primary care physician was and found it was a Rose doctor. I made an appointment with him ASAP but I also drove to Rose ED because of the severity of the pain. They were BUSY. I got the impression it was going to be a pretty bad wait, but these folks are GREAT! They got me in within about 30 min. I was truly impressed by how much they cared about me and my comfort. I know they dont go giving out pain meds right and left but I didnt have to push them for something to help me. They sent me home with a pain medication, steroids, and muscle relaxer. They also made it clear to come right back in if I needed anything else from them. Unfortunately I did have to come back in a couple days later because the pain meds just werent helping the pain. They staff was as pleasant as can be and tried as hard as they could to alleviate my pain. They even tried to do some trigger point injections! Unfortunately they injections didnt help much BUT the new meds really seemed to take the edge off. Unfortunately the doctor that was supposed to be my Prinary care physician wont take me because even though I was assigned to him, I had gone so long without seeing a doctor that he was now currently not seeing any new Tricare patients. I eventually found a Porter hospital associated doctors but couldnt get in to him for almost two weeks and unfortunately ran out of meds before getting in to him so I went to porter ER for continuity of care as far as seeing my new porter doctor. Porter was HORRIBLE to me. They berated me so harshly about needing meds with the room door wide open for everybody to hear, and they sent me home without pain control and sobbing. They physically walked me out of there by my hand. Sense then I have canceled my Porter Doctor as my PCP and am seeing another clinic that ordered an MRI for me and it is TERRIBLE! No wonder I am in so much pain. Thank you Rose for treating me with such dignity and respect and COMPASSION. Unfortunately, thats not a common quality in health care systems in Denver, which was very surprising and sad. I hope very much to someday get back in to a Rose doctor. I am so so thankful for them. Being in pain like that is a very scary and dangerous thing. Nobody should be intimidated and fearful of getting medical help and thats how I now feel about Porter.

GR

Gregory Zimet

During my fathers recent stay in the Rose ICU the care was very substandard. When I was growing up in Denver in the 1960s and 1970s Rose was considered one of the finest hospitals in the area, if not the finest. It no longer comes close to deserving this reputation. The nursing care was quite good, but thats the only real positive thing I can say. The hospitalist who cared for my father was brusque and initially refused to contact the doctors who had been seeing my father for years - because they work for a different hospital system (University of Colorado Anschutz). He aggressively pushed hospice care (again, having established no relationship with my father), then when my father refused, essentially threatened him with painful, intrusive procedures, saying that the choice was either hospice or aggressive treatment (clearly not true). My father ended up at Rose because the ambulance drivers didnt want to deal with the rush hour traffic and Rose was closer to my fathers home. The hospitalist went off service the day before my father was to be discharged, without letting us know. The day of discharge we came into the hospital to find that the new doctor on service did not yet have hospital privileges, which means he had just been hired. He had no familiarity with any of the patients he was covering and clearly could barely function. By the time he saw my father they had rushed through his privileges, so he was able to write the discharge orders. But by this time it was 2:30pm and we had to scramble to make arrangements to transport my father home with the appropriate support. The new doctor wrote several prescriptions for my father on discharge, but the pharmacy wouldnt fill them because he wasnt yet in their system. We had to contact Rose to get a credentialed doctor to cosign so we could get my fathers medications. Some time in the last few years, Rose was purchased by Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), a for profit, publicly traded company. Theyre primary loyalty has to be to their stock holders - its clearly not to their patients.