This is a complaint about Dr. Tajiri's unwillingness to help with rescheduling after she canceled my appointment.
I was hospitalized in November 2022 for a significant issue that needed follow up. I was new to the area and still needed to establish a primary care physician. That same month, I made an appointment with Dr. Tajiri; the earliest available appointment was in late February. Due to doctor shortages in the Monterey bay area, it is simply difficult to get into see a physician for any chronic issues; the nurse practitioners at MoGo made it very clear that they would not see me for my condition and I even had issues getting in with Doctors on Duty for this issue, hence it was exceedingly important to me to be able to see a primary care physician. I made numerous phone calls to numerous different agencies, and with my health insurance, the late February appointment date with Dr. Tajiri was the best I could do, even though I had a more urgent issue.
About two weeks before the appointment (which was set for Friday), I received a phone call from Montage stating that Dr. Tajiri wanted to reschedule my appointment because Dr. Tajiri was going to start working from home on Fridays; she would not do telehealth for my type of appointment. I was fine with this, but then was told the earliest I could reschedule would be the month of June. I explained my medical situation to the staff members and to staff supervisors, and requested that they speak to Dr. Tajiri and see if she would make an exception or work to schedule me in at some other time. I was bluntly told no and that the earliest she would see me was June. It did not matter that I had scheduled my appointment in November or that I had waited several months, and it did not matter that I had a significant medical issue where I need a prescription refill that I could not get any other doctor to refill (thankfully I got on the cancellation list of another doctor, and that doctor immediately refilled my prescription - not to be too dramatic, but for me, it is a life-saving medication). How Dr. Tajiri handled cancelling on patients so that she could work from home just came across to me as callous and selfish; working from home is a convenience. I have no problem with it in general, but believe that as a service provider where other people, such as myself, rely upon and count on that service, Dr. Tajiri should have made reasonable accommodation exceptions while she transitioned to working from home on Fridays rather than just outright canceling my appointment without even discussing it with me. read more