First of all... The actual treatment I received from Ridgeview was fine. Nice nurse, nice PA,…read moreprompt, professional treatment. But that is where it ends.
I checked in on the app, which was a waste of time because it didn't work. Had to fill out a paper form at the office. Not a big deal, but it turned out to be a harbinger of what was to come.
I arrived 10 minutes early at 8 am to find a young lady behind glass at reception who utterly ignored me for about a full minute while she typed into her computer. No "hello." No "someone will be right with you." Nothing. Finally another lady stepped in to check me in.
To be fair, I did not have to wait long after check in and I was called into the exam room where everything went fine. The PA said he would write me some prescriptions and I told the nurse to send them over to Walmart.
When I went to check out, I got no paperwork. No wound care instructions, no prescription instructions, no receipt, no nothing. Chalked this up to some "portal" thing or to some other paperless delivery method and I figured the information would be in my email when I got to work. Nope. Nothing.
So I went to work and on lunch, about four hours later, I rolled over to Walmart to find that the prescriptions had not been called in. From Walmart, I spent almost a half an hour trying to get a human being to answer the phone at the Ridgeview and this is simply not possible at this office, even though there were more than half a dozen employees there during my visit. I tried to get the Walmart pharmacy technician to call Ridgeview, but the pharmacy tech said he couldn't get anybody at Ridgeview to answer the phone either.
So, after wasting a lunch hour on the uncomfortable Walmart bench in a futile effort to get a human to answer the phone at Ridgeview, I went back to work without my prescriptions and tried to call again.
It appears that the only way to actually speak to a human being (at the company that owns Ridgeview) is to press "1" for appointments. They don't have a human to handle existing patients but it seems like they hop all over new business.
Using this method sends your call to Calcutta or Rio or somewhere else that is clearly not Lynchburg, and puts you on the phone with a very nice lady who speaks English as a second language well enough, but who can do nothing at all to help you as an existing patient. I complained to this lady, and she must have emailed Ridgeview, because a few hours later, I got a call from a nurse at Ridgeview, who explained that they do not call in prescriptions until the end of the day. It sure would have been nice to know that before I wasted an hour of my life, but I chalked the mishap up to miscommunication and moved on.
So the next day, I went back to Walmart, where I found that 30 day supply of one of the prescriptions would cost nearly $1,000. This not being in the budget, I called to Ridgeview and left a message for the triage nurse (because, as I have already established, nobody answers the phone there) with my name, DOB, return phone number and the description of my problem. No call back.
Just called again, left another message, but I do not expect a call. Looks like they will just ignore me entirely.
Apparently, I will need to go back to Ridgeview in person and get ignored by the receptionist and stand there again until somebody finally decides to deal with me.
