Stay away. This ER has a dangerous combination of lack of competence & following standard procedure, & utter indifference to patients' pain and symptoms. They don't care and they take no accountability.
About six weeks ago, I requested admission to the ER for severe abdominal pain at 3:00 am after six hours of debilitating pain that didn't respond to Tylenol & prevented me from sleeping.
The nurse, Aaron Thygerson, who took my chart was snippy & rude, telling me to "tone down that breathing."
Dr. Mark Christensen refused to believe or treat my actual symptoms, insisted that my belief that food had caused my pain couldn't be possible (wildly incorrect & a frightening lack of basic knowledge in an ER doctor), tried to pathologize my PTSD medical cannabis prescription (repeatedly insisted that it the cause of my abdominal pain, even though I wasn't experiencing extreme vomiting and explained several times that these pain episodes started before my cannabis use & cannabis has never affected me that way), misled me about the treatment he was giving me, & sent me home even though I told him in detail about the ongoing severity of my pain after the treatment he gave me did nothing about the pain.
I told him it hurt to move or breathe and that I was unable to sleep. He told me three or four times, while I was inquiring about what to do about the pain, that he was discharging me. He seemed irritated that I wasn't leaving and grateful for the prescription he'd written me--for medication that I told him didn't help, and which wouldn't be able to be filled for at least five hours, when I was still in the middle of a pain emergency. He suggested a couple of OTC medications, including Tylenol, which I'd already explained I'd tried and didn't help. After several iterations of his saying he was discharging me and my asking what I should do about the pain and what I should do in the future to prevent these episodes (he did finally begrudgingly write me a referral to a GI specialist), I gave up and went home. By the time I got home, my pain was even worse and I felt like I was dying. I had no idea how I would get through the next 6-12 hours and deal with that level of pain, especially coupled with not sleeping. Because of my severe depression, missing a night's sleep cause cause me to be in a suicidal emergency.
When I later read my discharge papers, I discovered that Dr. Christensen had lied about the treatment he gave me. There was no pain treatment at all, only a nausea medication, which isn't remotely an appropriately treatment for severe abdominal pain. If he had been honest & told me that's what he was offering, I would have declined & sought treatment elsewhere. I was hoping to receive direct treatment for abdominal pain caused by bloating and trapped gas, but if that wasn't available, then I needed some kind of safe pain medication that would be more effective than Tylenol. He instead gave me treatment for a stomach problem. I spoke to my friend who is a nurse later--she was shocked that Lone Peak failed to follow standard procedure of giving a CT to check for trapped gas and bloating.
The quality director, Troy, won't have an honest conversation with you, either, but will try to blame you and will assert whatever went wrong with your visit was fine because he "would have done the same thing" & because, according to the doctor's notes, you were totally fine with it all. He sees no problem with using the doctor's notes to evaluate a patient's complaint of discriminatory, dishonest treatment. He's quick to claim Lone Peak isn't responsible for the doctors because the doctors are hired by a third party. He promised he would make sure a review of my case was conducted & would call me with the results. He made no effort to contact me, so I doubt any review was conducted. I requested my bill be waived because I didn't receive relevant, appropriate medical treatment. Lone Peak didn't have time to review my concerns, but they certainly found time to bill me.
After Troy read me part of the doctor's notes to try to prove to me I was wrong, I became concerned because it sounded like Dr. Christensen had misrepresented my visit. I requested a copy of the notes. The notes from my visit were flagrantly false, claiming I was "comfortable being discharged" & that "patient is not in severe distress," minimizing or lying about other symptoms I described, & discussing my cannabis use as though it were recreational (not stating anywhere that it is prescribed or making a note of my PTSD).
Lone Peak seems to feel justified in taking my money while refusing to treat the problem I actually have and in lying to and about me. I would rather just wait out an emergency at home than go here & be insulted, lied to, & billed to be left in the same state of emergency.
p.s. Whoever is running the owner's account, if you are truly concerned about my visit, don't tell me to call Troy. Talk to me yourself and take accountability. read more