My doctor just up and disappeared

WTF is right@! Wait till you hear this one. My Rheumatologist up and disappeared. Yep, that's right. Disappeared. My next appointment for tomorrow was scheduled three months ago, and this afternoon I got a call from their office saying that they had to cancel my appointment and would have to reschedule me with a different doctor because my doctor was no longer with their practice!

I asked, "well, where did she go? Is she with another practice?"

The receptionist said, "We can't disclose that information."

I said, "So, you just leave me and all of her patients hanging and wondering what happened to her? What are we supposed to do?"

She said that she would reschedule me with the main doctor, and asked if I was having any urgent problems and if I could wait awhile longer to be seen. I told her I had blood work done that had to be a week before my visit and tomorrow would be a week and since I am on medication that can cause liver and kidney damage I think it is kind of important to get in to be seen and go over lab results, at least so I don't die of poisoning from medication my missing doctor put me on. The girl said "Oh...ok" and she scheduled me with the other doctor for Monday. I think I am in for a really long wait on Monday along with all the other patients who are in the same situation.

How can a doctor just up and leave with no explanation to the patients. I truly hope she isn't sick, or that something happened to her. It would be nice to have an explanation. What is the big secret? Maybe someone is suing her and they don't want it known? I dunno. I guess I will try to find out from the other doctor when I go in on Monday.

I am having this happen a lot with doctor's lately. My back doctor cancels almost every appointment I make and wants to schedule me with his nurse practitioner...yet charges the full office visit price. Last time I scheduled with him I thought wow, they didn't call to reschedule this time. I went to the office, waiting for a couple of hours and when I got into the examining room in walks the nurse practitioner. He told me that my doctor was very busy and he was helping to pick up the slack. I asked why that ALWAYS happens with them. Does the doctor only want to bother with patients he knows he is going to get surgery money from? Seems like it to me since I am always blown off. The nurse practitioner gave me a prescription for more pain medicine and for two more weeks of therapy, plus an order for a traction device for home...and said to make an appointment with the doctor for four weeks. I told him that I will probably see him again in four weeks because the doctor is very elusive. He looked at me as if I was a smart ass. I admit, I was being snarky.

About my son's car. I got the distributor in that hubby ordered. I drove it straight over to the car repair place and said "see, we got a distributor in THREE DAYS"...asshats! I didn't say asshats but it's what I thought in my mind! I was good humored with them about it. I let them know that getting this car done was very urgent because our son has had our car in Chicago city limits too long now and who knows what is happening with it with him driving it around the city. He said it would be repaired this afternoon. Well...when hubby called to see if we could come pick it up, they said it wouldn't be done today. Does Jon ask any questions? Nope. I wanted answers dammit! So he told ME to call them back and nag if I wanted to nag. I said "ok, I will!" I called them back and said that my husband didn't get any details and I want to know what is going on so I can tell my son what's up. He said they had two cars on the rack ahead of ours, and he would get to it tonight and should be done in the morning. There is the weasel word SHOULD. I wanted to say "it BETTER be done" but I bit my tongue because we are kind of at their mercy at the moment. I will be very ticked if Jon wants to ever use this service again. They have shown me that they just don't give a hoot unless they are repairing thousand dollar transmissions.