I hate it when a consultants office tells us they will call the patient and make the appointment. Or worse yet, when they tell us to tell the patient to complete the patient packet they have given us to give the patient and then have the patient call to make the appointment. The largest GI group in town does it this way and it is one HUGE reason why I do not refer to them unless the patient insists. I cannot count the number of patients I have advised to have their first screening colonoscopy done and they then return to me the next year for their annual exam having never gotten around to calling the GI's office to make the arrangements. And, why should my staff have to mess with handing out their crap and explaining it to the patient?? I have even called the office manager there and told them how my patients were dropping through the cracks because of their system. Their response sounded a whole lot like "I don't care". The other solo GI doc's office is terrific. We call and the patient leaves our office with an appointment to be seen in her office so that her staff can go over all the details with them, the doc can meet the patient and determine if anything else may need to be looked at, and the procedure is arranged. In my opinion, there is nothing worse than being told to show up somewhere at sometime after having gone through one of the most unpleasant evenings of their lives to have what they fear will be the most humiliating thing of their lives done by someone they have never met and won't remember after the procedure.
