For the previous twelve years I've been going to this TriCore location, I would have given them top reviews. I now wish I had. I appreciate that it is a quiet office, never crowded, and I've often been able to get in and out very quickly, sometimes within minutes. The technicians have all been very nice and competent, and we've enjoyed going. BUT ...
Something changed yesterday. I am the caregiver to my elderly friend, who is 100 years old and in a wheelchair. He is also legally blind with macular degeneration. We've always had a great experience at this location, but for some reason they now had a new rule where I wasn't allowed back into the exam area with him. They claimed it was for "privacy" reasons, and that letting me back would be a HIPAA violation.
I protested that I wasn't just some friend along for company, I am his caregiver and need to know what is going on in his medical appointments. As for privacy of other patients, there was no one else there at that time.
I explained that if they showed him a label to confirm his name and birthday, he wouldn't be able see it. If they demonstrated something they wanted him to do, he couldn't see it. If they asked him questions about his medical history, he often can't remember details, or gives wrong information. That might actually endanger him. He can get anxious without me nearby, in unfamiliar places he can't see, with people he can't see clearly.
All to no avail. They wouldn't let me back and made me stay in the waiting area while they wheeled him back, wondering why I wasn't going with him. While I was standing in the waiting room, trying to hear what was going on with my friend, a woman checked in. Overhearing my protest that my friend is 100 years old and can't see, and that I needed to know what was going on with him, she said, "Caregiver?" I said yes. She said she had just been in with her elderly father a day earlier and she suddenly wasn't allowed back with him either. She said her father had no idea what was going on.
I was obviously upset, but I did what I was told, didn't threaten anyone, calmly asked at the desk whom I could talk to about this new policy, and was given a slip of paper with a phone number and website ... but then a security guard actually showed up and hovered over me, trying his best to look tough and intimidating. I couldn't believe they had actually secretly called a *security guard*. First we were treated, I would say, unethically; then I was treated like a criminal for not liking it.
Forceably separating a handicapped elderly person from their caregiver just seems highly unethical to me -- maybe even bordering on elder abuse. Caregivers for children under 18 are allowed back. Why not caregivers for elderly people? If an elderly patient is allowed back, their caregiver -- someone highly involved in their medical issues -- should be allowed back too. PERIOD. This is the first time I've not been allowed to be with him in a medical setting.
I did indeed write a complaining email to the TriCore website on that slip of paper, and in response was told that the (noisy, crowded, long wait lines) Llano Street TriCore location still allows caregivers back, as do some other TriCore offices.
So, wait. If allowing caregivers back is a HIPAA violation on St. Michael's ... why isn't it a HIPAA violation five minutes away on Llano St.? If one location can do it, the other location can do it too. read more