The Broken Medical System From a Customer's Point of View
High tech and good medical insurance can't cure the basics
There are easier ways to make fundamental changes to the medical system
Everytime you turn around, Bang! There’s another sordid tale of the broken medical system. This is one of those tales. I know what incredible things our medical system is capable of. For a couple of years I was the Engineering Supervisor for the Marriott Medical Center Hotel in Houston. We had about 240 rooms that stayed fairly full all year save for a couple of weeks around Christmas. Most of those sojourners were forigners that came to America for treatment, some staying in the hotel long-term.
But that’s a while ago; this is my story now and the subject of this post. A bit of history is in order. Back in 2019, right at the tail end of the decade, I had surgery to correct an inguinal hernia. Accoding to the Mayo Clinic, it’s a situation where your stomach lining rips in the groin area allowing one’s colon to pooch out while carrying out digestion duties, rumbling merrily along. La la!
To call the pain “bad” might be a bit of an understatement. Male + pressure-inducing-groin-displacement = a very bad bunch of days and nights. Anyway, I went under the knife and got my life back. But… mesh repairs in that area are expected to have a shelf life, and six years later, I hit mine.
That’s right. My old friend has returned and this time I know exactly what it is as it comes on; this is a creeping-up ailment, at least in my not-limited-enough experience. Let the hoop-jumping that is our medical system begin!
I go to my primary care physician for a referral, because, hey, he has to verify that I’m having a hard time walking. Must be a reason for that. I ask for the same surgeon if he is still available and that’s all good.
At home, I dial the surgeon’s office to make a consultation appointment. I asked for the same surgeon that performed the original fix. Call it brand loyalty; plus, I am also an established patient. Over the phone we go through my new, updated insurance information in painstaking detail. I can hear her tapping it all in. “Blue Cross/Blue Shield out! UnitedHealthcare in!”
I wait a week for the appointment to arrive. A lot of this time is spent in bed because gravity works wonders with colon-flattening and the pain relief that it brings. Not complaining though. Being retired makes going to a job a non-issue, although I have woodworking projects tapping their little feet and scowling at me. Welcome to the Insomniac Workshop.
It’s the morning of my appointment, finally. The surgeon’s consultation office is in the building next to the behemoth hospital. Even though my appointment is an early one, parking is an issue. It’s free, but the nearest open parking space is two blocks away. For a guy whose idea of a fun Saturday morning is a 12-mile long training run, gimping two blocks with an ice pick in the groin is a humbling experience, to say the least.
My groin felt fine at the Seabrooks Trails Quarter Marathon, March 2026
The appointment goes great. The staff are aces and the doctor/surgeon is as good-vibe as I remember. If you are as high on the conscienciousness scale as I am you know that the trait is a blessing and a curse. On the downside, too much empathy and humility is hard on the spirit. On the upside, I am grateful for the intuition that says, “Yeah, if somebody has to put a knife to me while I’m incapacitated, this is my guy.”
I limp back the somehow-much-longer two blocks back to my tiny Tacoma with my hospital intake test forms in hand. Remembering that this is a real meatgrinder of a process requiring about four hours of sitting for ten minutes of tests, I opt to come back first thing in the morning before the expanding in the hospital waiting room backlog. I needed bed right about then.
The fun wastes no time in getting started the next morning. Over coffee, I notice that all the intake forms have my OLD insurance information, not my NEW info. I call my laison at the doctor’s office. She’ll check and call me back. More coffee while I wait.
It turns out that yes, all my new info was in the database. Each and every code was correct, but alas, human error won/lost the day; the “Use This Insurance as Primary” box had not been checked off. Duh; one mouseclick away from success. The best software but no training? Who knows. The important thing is that the hospital can take care of it. “Just show your card. It will be easy,” she says.
I load up my pockets with energy gels. I foresee the need for endurance nutrition. I have missed my planned “early bird gets the worm” plan. I also grab my 1945 volume of The Practical Cogitator. There is no better book for nugget-sized wisdom.
The hospital parking situation is no better. This time it is two and a half blocks but today the groin icepick is only a groin thumbtack. Thank God for small favors. Now I just have to figure out which of the three towers I need. They all share the same address because they are connected.
The second tower I explored was correct. How did I narrow it down? Nobody knew where the elusive “Surgery Intake Test” department was, but as my surgeon laison had told me, “Look for a reception desk past the Starbucks and the big fish tank.” Sure enough, everybody know where those were. And just let me point out, whoever has the contract for that fish tank, well done! Imagine, if you will, how many dishearted and sad kids find a bit of distraction in there.
I handed my forms to the receptionist and tried to point out the issue with the insurance but she would have none of it. She was agreeable but officious. “Have a seat and we’ll bring the forms for you to fill out.”
“But…,” I said.
“Have a seat; we have our process. Thank you.” Smile.
Thirty-three minutes later she brings me an iPad. She’s beaming like she just won the big bingo. “Just return it to the desk when you’re done.”
I pretend to read legalese and electronically sign, initial, and date many, many pages of waivers before… Behold: pages and pages of Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance details to enter.
I limp back to the reception desk. “The insurance company is wrong. And my wife isn’t the responsible party for my insurance.” Where not long ago I had gazed into the face of cool efficiency, now all I saw was a deer in the headlights. Apparantly, this wasn’t part of THE PROCESS. One can’t put helium back into a popped balloon. “I tried to show you earlier before you input all the wrong stuff.”
“Do you have your new card?” Her agreeableness quotient has considerably cooled, I noted.
I give here my card and wait, expecting her to come back with a re-individualized iPad. Nope, just a wristband and a short stack of paperwork. I guess this UnitedHealthcare Medicare is just plug-n-play; can my days of re-entering the same data by hand on any number of forms be over? Hello, here’s a plus!
My first test department to visit is bloodwork. This goes very well and let’s take amoment to underscore the fact that the first thing the phlebotomist does is ask my name and DOB. Standard fare. Wristbands and printed stickers are supposed to keep things legit, but I now think the wristband data is just there for, God forbid, a post-mortem ID, not a test verification token.
While I wait in the lobby perusing The Practical Cogitator, a fellow steps up to the reception window (not the same primary reception) and explains (haven’t we heard this before) that he’s been waiting, folks have been going before him, etc. I listen with interest because this is not Karenesque at all; he is spot-on. I’ve been watching the room in observation mode since I’ve been here and he seemingly has indeed been passed over. I’m not nosy by nature; I’m a writer and that gives me a look-compulsion. Mindfulness is a superpower.
He tells her his name is Griffin, she apologizes, and within two shakes, off he goes to get his blood drawn. Shortly after that, out comes the phlebotomist and she has a good look at my wristband. “Huh,” she says, “my patient in there has your same name. Here, he had this.”
She hands me a form which is creased from being folded up. It’s my form, with my name, for my X-ray. “Thanks. I think.” Actually, I don’t know what to think. I know she verified his name because that’s her schtick. Somehow THE PROCESS put Smith personal paperwork into Griffin hands. Don’t get me started on making personal data public; that’s what thought the wristbands helped avoid.
My next test is an EKG. I relate my sordid tale to the tech so she can double-check that everything is me, me, me. The electrode technology has improved. The removal of them did not also remove my chest hair. Patriarchal toxicity preserved. Life is good.
Finally, my chest X-ray. The procedure is easy; finding the testing lab office is a different matter. Sure, radiology is on the second floor, but “just take the elevator to the second floor” is simply a tease. Once I step out of the elevator and begin trekking and sign-reading (nobody that I ask on this floor seems to know what surgery intake means although the first-floor types throw the term around like an old rag), I limp past Pediactric Radiology, Emergency Radiology, Diagnostic Radiology, and more. I want to make a clever joke about Nuclear Bomb Apocalypse Radiology but I’m just too damned tired and my groin hurts.
Finally, I find a small waiting area. This one must be right because the old Indian guy pushing his wife in her wheelchair is already here. We’ve been leapfrogging waiting rooms all day. They look as tired as I feel. The X-ray procedure goes fine but once again I feel prudently obliged to be sure that I am who I say I am and that my stickers reflect that fact.
Finally done, I gimp back the two and a half blocks to my Tacoma, my Fortress of Solitude. Excuse the gratuitous Superman reference, from way, way back before he lost his mind and became a woke global citizen. It’s a mighty good thing to be done with the hospital and back in the sunshine and fresh air. And icing on the cake, as the AC cools down I’m looking straight across and up the street to where my daughter was born. Good times indeed.
I was pleased to see that by the time I got home my results were already available for access on the online portal. There was no doctor review yet, but the raw data and lab observations were there for my perusal. This is one patientcentric area in which the medical system has really improved. Fast, transparent results really showcase this. I was concerned about whether I would be getting my results or those of my unfortunate friend, Mr. Griffin. I could verify the X-ray result as mine because it referenced a calcified nodule in one lung. My trademark.
So. What exactly is the takeaway here? We’ve given accolades to results and transparency. The technology at hand seems to me, excellent. But the human factor?
The problems with our medical system are legion and that is certainly beyond my immediate scope. But as mentioned above — the software technology is excellent. I say this as a recovering coder. The problem in the implementation is either training or paying attention to mundane tasks because hey, this adventure all started with one simple checkbox. Primary insurance anyone? If that one mouseclick had have happened the forms would have been correct for the iPad programmer to blindly type in. THE PROCESS which must be followed without any patient input allowed would have worked.
I’ve given one thing quite a bit of thought and discussed it with SWMBO — is this policy of allowing front desk people the disgression of actually listening to customers or not helpful? That’s a resounding “NO” from both myself and SWMBO. In fact, I would suggest that at time of document intake, it should be job-description mandatory to politely ask, “Is all this information correct?” You can bet your shiny backside the billing department will ask it.
That’s not simply an irritating prima donna attitude. It makes absolutely zero business sense. A half-hour of someone’s time to set up the iPad with the wrong information. Me holding up the line twice as many times, taking twice as much time dealing with explaining and diagnosing what went wrong, and coming up with another plan of action. That plan? Photocopy my insurance card and print lab forms and a wristband. Very retro.
So… beyond the initial problem of the checkbox, the hospital system experience that I have described is a system that is bloated with poorly-communicating sub-systems and policies that are not only expensive; they are self-defeating. While seemingly designed to prevent making critical errors in a hospital setting, THE PROCESS went wrong in so many ways. It was like a snowball that very few employees (associates, ahem) were interested in taking charge and fixing. Did Mr. Griffin have an identical wristband to mine? I’ll never know. He did have my printout though, and the phlebotomist did say he had my same name. Except that he didn’t. It’s all hinky.
Have you had a similar or worse experience or was my day at the hospital just meh… acceptable? Let me know in the comments and please subscribe and share.
Of Interest:
Playing the Long Game essay on running and aging
Incorporate Humility into Your Life podcast episode
Practice Mindfulness podcast episode
Let Go of Entitlement podcast episode