Justina Smith

Review of Fletcher Allen Health Care

The health professionals are great, no complaints....

The health professionals are great, no complaints.
However, the whole hospital is optimized for billing. Every time, I've gone to the ER I have spent hours waiting for a few minutes of care. I went for chest pains and spent 6 hours. I may have had 10 minutes of actual "care" during that time. After being shuffled from room to room I asked if they forgot me. It was obvious that I had been lost in the shuffle.
During that time several people came to see me. Every one asked me the same questions or did duplicate tests. Billing, billing, billing.
Several people asked me "registration questions" which is just an excuse to verify your billing information. Why do I have to see 10 people asking me the same questions over and over? Billing.
Why are there so many people in the hallways chatting or entering numbers into computers? Billing.
Of course they always have the excuse that people with more urgent problems come before you. Sure, that happens sometimes but there is absolutely no thought for efficiency in the system and I'm sure there is an army of people that are employed figuring out how to make the maximum amount of money from each visit.
I don't think Fletcher Allen is a special case. However, they should be audited for optimizing services for billing instead of efficient health care.