Aspen Aman sent a message to Stephen H Rusckowski that said:
Dear Mr. Rusckowski,
I want to share with you the extreme frustration my family has experienced in trying to make a lab appointment for my critically ill uncle at your Stone Oak location in San Antonio, Texas.
It was IMPOSSIBLE to get through to a human being during office hours on Friday afternoon (22 June) or Saturday morning (23 June, today) to make an urgent appointment as instructed by my uncle's physician. Your call center, the only other place I could turn, isn't even open on Saturdays -- when you have lab locations open during that time!
I am astounded at how truly inhumane and unresponsive your "self-service" appointment system is -- I have already made an appointment via that portal for 25 June for my uncle. But your portal doesn't give any option for "STAT" lab tests (as described by the treating physician) nor any way to contact a human being from your organization to try to get such an urgent appointment.
I, for one, will never choose your lab for any diagnostics, based on my experience with trying to help my extremely ill uncle simply get an ESR done on an urgent basis. I will definitely be calling the referring doctor on Monday morning and telling her about the impossibility of working with your labs on a real-time, urgent human needs basis.
As an American who has lived abroad for 25 years and back in Texas simply to help elderly family members for some time, I cannot help but be deeply shocked by the state of the US health "care" system compared to my own very positive experiences as a patient in Dubai, India and Thailand.
I am sorry for my uncle who is stuck having to depend on companies like yours that make NO ARRANGEMENT a patient with an urgent need to get a lab test.
My aunt probably died last year from cancer too soon because of doctors and labs that couldn't be bothered to have a way to schedule urgent appointments for patients who medically needed that fast-track. And on a weekend (like now), we are at the mercy of folks like you since I can't find his treating physician today to try to get another alternative.
I will be disrecommending Quest Diagnostics to everyone I know.
To not have a single option on your IVR for urgent lab tests -- to be performed during your normal office hours -- is just plain wrong.
Furiously,
Aspen Aman
