Randy Hutton

Review of OakMed Family Health Team

The Doctors and Nurse practitioners are great at t...

The Doctors and Nurse practitioners are great at this clinic but the staff who answer calls and take apppointments need a lesson in customer service.

I understand you people must deal with a lot of morons and hypochondriacs, but that by no means justifies your impatience and complete lack of empathy.

I called first thing this morning to book an appointment to have a bandage replaced on a fairly severe wound (see image and judge for yourself) on my hand. I spent last night in the ER and the doctor at the hospital advised that I have the initial bandage change done after 48 hours by my family doctor. Unfortunately, this would be around 6PM on Saturday.

I called Oak Med first thing Friday morning and waited almost 15 minutes on hold before my first call was finally answered. The lady with whom I spoke only told me that there was no care available at this time. Thinking I was out of luck I hung up after telling her I would have to go to a walk-in clinic. I later learned that there was actually some urgent care availability on Saturday from 10 - 1PM. I had to figure this out on my own by google search.

My doctor's office has been quite vocal about having us not go to any walk-in clinic in favour of their 'urgent care' services. You'd think if this were really the case the 1PM option would have at least been mentioned to me - but no. When I asked about this she said 'you asked for an appointment around 5 or 6PM and I told you that there is no urgent care available at that time'.

I then called back about an hour later and waited over 45 minutes on hold before I stopped hearing the hold music. During this time, I went from caller 4, to caller 1, then back to caller 3, caller 2 and finally caller 1 for a second time before the call abruptly ended.

By my math, one call was answered every 7 minutes. So if you're 4th line, you're waiting about a half hour to simply book your doctor's appointment. This is just a little too long for me.

I called back for a third time and jumped back in the queue as caller 3. Over 15 minutes later my third call was finally answered. After spending almost an hour and a half on hold over the course of three phone calls, I was able to confirm that there is in fact 'urgent care' on Saturdays from 10AM - 1PM but that it was for 'urgent' care only. I was told that I needed to call tomorrow morning to have any chance of getting in on Saturday.

What kind of asinine policy is this?

I explained that my issue was quite urgent and questioned why I simply couldn't book an appointment today (Friday) for tomorrow. This got me nowhere.

Rather than waiting on hold for a half hour tomorrow I think I'll take my chances at a walk in.

Thanks for nothing Oak Med!