Highline Medical Center

Reviews 3

NI

Nicholas Sweeten

My experience with Highline Medical is horrible. Ive checked into the ER three times. Once for a sprained ankle suffered at work, once for getting hit by a car as a pedestrian, and once for inexplicable kidney pain that crippled me for weeks. When I got hit by a car they took my vitals and that was it. Not even an x-ray. The doctor made me wait in the lobby for an hour despite unknown internal injuries. I could barely stand, much less walk, and they didnt even offer me a wheel chair but I had to walk myself across the hospital to my assigned room, in noticeable pain all the while. No medication was given to me while I was there. Then all the doctor did was give a visual inspection, touching me with ungloved hands. I was given a prescription for ibuprofen! Rest assured though, the medical bills were outrageous, the hospital never even lost the cost of a pair of latex gloves. The time I wasted in the lobby should have been payment enough for the quality of care I received. When I checked myself in for kidney pain I had my vitals taken and was given an x-ray and a morphine drip while I was there. But I went undiagnosed. Never found the cause. I got a prescription for narcotic pain relief, enough to last just a few days, and was sent home. The pain eventually went away on its own but to this day I have no explanation. They never referred me to a consultant or specialist and never asked me to come back in for a checkup. Neither of these first two occurrences was I able to show proof of medical insurance before the care I received. I was able to get insurance to pay later on. But the fact of the matter is both times they sent my medical bills to a collection agency as soon as I left the hospital. I was getting soliciting phone calls later that same night. They never even asked me to pay my bill. The best care I received so far was when I sprained my ankle at work and L&I covered the bills. I had to use the bathroom while I was laid up in bed and they flat out ignored me and my pleas for help to the bathroom or for a bed pan. They didnt even adjust my crutches correctly. My discharge paperwork explicitly stated that the hospital would call me in a few days for a telephone-based checkup on my condition. I never received that call. It took me a week and a half but I realized that they had discharged me without even filling out the L&I claim paperwork correctly, making me ineligible for workplace compensation AND ineligible to return to work until I got it resolved. After a dozen phone calls, transfers, a bit of being given the runaround, and three voice mail messages that went unanswered, I finally got a hold of the right person a WEEK later, who told me I had to come back in (on my crutches) to have them fix their mistake. They back-dated it so that I would get less in compensation than the time I was off from work getting them to resolve the mistake. Trivial complaint: The discharge paperwork also gave me instructions on how I could access my hospital records online by signing up for their website. After signing up and forking over my personal information, the website still denied me access to my records, telling me that record information could only be given out over the phone. That is the sum total of my experience with HMC. My friends and family in the area have had similarly horrible experiences. No one I know is satisfied with HMC. And from what I hear, they are the more overpriced hospital in the area.

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Rebekah LaSala

WARNING: GO TO SWEDISH: They are MUCH better and IF YOU GO HERE, YOU ARE PUTTING YOUR LIFE AT RISK!!!!!!! I went today to the ER. Lets not mention when I lived in Burien (I do not now) and I got horrible care there and I had stitches done improperly and a Cath in my arm done to the point where they put my life at risk...We will just stick to today. At about 9:45 this morning, I had coughed pretty hard and then was going into the bedroom to say something to my husband and I felt this sharp pain as if something had ruptured and exploded. After going to the ER, the first problem was the idiot at the front desk who had tatoos and glasses. I am sitting there screaming in pain and without coming out to even check on me, they had me waiting in the wheelchair in the center so everyone could just stare while I sat there. I told the Nurse who brought me in that I was waiting a long time and watched others go before me and she argued with me, was EXTREMELY nasty and EXTREMELY unprofessional and compassionless and she goes, "It was not THAT long." She would not give me her name...Very Suspicious and EXTREMELY ABUSIVE. She was also telling my husband nasty things about me that were not true like "Your wife is being belligerent." WTF? The nurse Heidi comes in who was nice, but then she disappeared. I am sitting there screaming in my bed for at least an hour before the "PA" (I did not even get a REAL DOCTOR) comes in and he did not even introduce himself as my doctor, He just came in and was giving me nasty looks and the nasty once over like I had done something to his mother, when all I was doing was being in pain. He comes in and tells me that the thinks this is a muscle spasm and then says he will bring relief soon and then another half hour goes by, nothing. This is AFTER HE walks by SEVERAL TIMES, SEES THAT I NEED HELP,W ATCHES ME SCREAM AND DOES NOTHING. I had ran the Nurse Bell at least three times. This a hole comes in to give me an ice pack and at that point, I did not want to the Ice Pack b/c the DOCTOR WHO WAS NOT LISTENING DID NOT HEAR THE FACT THAT THAT ICE AGGRAVATED my condition. Then the pscyho abusive nurse tells my husband that I refused the ice pack to pit my own husband against me...playing emotional games with me. Then the doctor, after me asking for the Nurse Manager and hitting the Nurse button three times, tells me he is going to INTENTIONALLY put BAD THINGS IN MY RECORDS ABOUT ME B/C I COMPLAINED ABOUT HOW I WAS BEING TREATED. He also REFUSED TO DO A BLOOD TEST OR MRI despite the fact that I was asking for it and my insurance would cover it. Only after me begging did he do an X RAY, and then he left and walked out and told me to have a nice day. You CAN BET I AM GETTING ALL THEIR NAMES AND WILL BE FILING A SERIOUS COMPLAINT WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AGAINST THEM. They have some serious answering to do. I ended up going to Swedish and finding out that I have a Slipped Disc. That is a A LOT more serious than a muscle spasm. I will NEVER forget how horribly I was treated here and hope that ANYONE WHO READS THIS DOES NOT GO TO THE ER! Rebekah

MA

Mark Anthony Scott

I WISH I COULD GIVE THEM A ZERO!!! I went there 5 years ago barely able to breathe, chest hurt, could barely walk, and with a fever that had lasted over two weeks. The nurse does my vitals and takes my temperature and says everythings normal, except that I could see that my blood pressure was 80/50, and my temperature was over 102!!! I confronted her about it, and she says the machines broken. If thats the case, how do you know its normal?! They take some blood, tell me I have a simple uti, give me a small prescription of antibiotics, and tell me it should clear up in a few days. Practically push me out the door. I was a heroin user at the time, but still 20 years old!!! Well, two weeks later; I cant even walk ten steps to the bathroom, my chest feels like its full of lead, Im freezing all the time but the fevers gone, and I cant even take small sips of water without projectile vomiting. I finally get driven to swedish hospital on cherry; I have hypothermia (temp of 91), oxygen level around 60, blood pressure in the 70s, am in multiple organ failure, have congestive heart failure, staph bacteria riddled throughout my entire body in my bloodstream, and am diagnosed with bacterial endocarditis in minutes, along with told Im probably not going to make it. I told the dr that I was seen at Highline and he told me that there was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that 2 weeks ago my vitals were fine and that it just looked like a simple uti. HIGHLINE KNEW MY DIAGNOSIS BUT DECIDED THAT I, A 20 YEAR OLD GIRL, DIDNT DESERVE TREATMENT AND SHOULD DIE BECAUSE I WAS ADDICTED TO HEROIN!!! After a 6 week stay at the cherry hospital, some absolutely amazing staff who worked their hands to the bone and used their blood sweat and tears to save my life, and 5 years later; I am 5 years clean, I have a daughter and a family, and Im living a very happy life! Highline Medical Center would have let me die with my whole life still ahead of me because they didnt think I deserved to treated for an illness that they knew without proper treatment was going to kill me. They saw the clubbing of my nails, how bad my vitals were, how much pain I was in; but because they also saw track marks, they decided that I should die. They KNEW very well that a small prescription of bactrum wouldnt have done anything for me, they just had to cover their asses saying that they did something. As medical staff, you dont decide who deserves to live or deserves to get treated. If someones sick, you just treat them and you do your job treating the patient with as much dignity as possible. HIGHLINE MEDICAL CENTER FAILED!!!! On top of that, my mom and I reported them because of the treatment, we got a settlement from them. Well then they try to send us a bill with a bunch of tests that they didnt even do while I was there that equals just about as much as the amount we got in the settlement!!! Even if we legitimately owed them ANYTHING, because of the treatment I got there, the fact that they knew what was wrong with me but decided that I deserved to die; my mom and I absolutely swore that they would NEVER see a penny from us!