Geisinger Mt Pocono

I had a terrible experience trying to get my weight and bp checked when I went in for my monthly appointment. First, I waited an hour in the waiting room while the nurse was sitting at her desk doing nothing. When I was taken back by the nurse, I was told that they could not take a weight or blood pressure check without orders and they had none on file. I tried to explain that I have this done every month, and I was never aware of an order before. The nurse, Renee, stated that she has to protect her license. I waited in the exam room while she checked with the doctor. Then Dr. Bollock came into the room and questioned me at length about why I was in the Mount Pocono office, why I didn’t have orders, etc. Between her and the nurse, they were going through my chart checking all the dates of my previous bp checks and questioning me about the months I did not have it done at the Mount Pocono office. The nurse asked me Do you even have high blood pressure? I explained to them that I have it done monthly for my prescription. At this point I have been in the exam room for about 45 minutes. I told them if you can not do it I will just let My geisinger PCP (not an outside physician) know. They then said they were not refusing to do it, but they need orders. Then they both left the room to discuss it further. Then I waited about another 20 minutes and I was told they were working on the order. Finally the doctor said that she will give a blood pressure order, but not a weight order. The nurse took my blood pressure, pulse, temperature, weight and height and stated that she is documenting it as vitals and My PCP will have to figure out what to do about that. In total, I was in the room for at least an hour over to get my weight and blood pressure checked! Not to mention the fact they made me feel like I was on trial. They were disrespectful and spoke to me in a very condescending tone. I complained and they took no responsibility for the rudeness and bullying I received from their staff. I have been going in and having my weight and blood pressure checked in five minutes every month since March!
This is the response I received: I am sorry that you had such a terrible experience at the Mt Pocono Office on Saturday. I spoke to both Dr Bolock and Nurse Renee about this visit and I understand the reason for the request for orders for both vital signs. Both DR and Renee thought that they did the best they could given the circumstances surrounding the visit, let me explain. We do not accept orders from outside physicians for a few reasons. In your case, you were requesting a Blood Pressure check and a Weight Check due to medication management. All nursing treatments require orders, this is important for documentation and billing purposes. Patients with a Hypertension diagnosis receive free blood pressure monitoring if they are a Mt Pocono patient. If the patient is a MT Pocono patient that does not have a diagnosis of Hypertension, the screening is a billable visit. The Mt Pocono providers and nurses follow a strict protocol for blood pressure management. This protocol requires a primary care provider, or a covering provider, to evaluate any patient that has a blood pressure of ¹⁵⁰⁄₉₀ or greater, or a patient is found to be hypotensive with symptoms. Nursing is not allowed to let a patient leave until a provider gives orders if they fall under the outlined criteria. Because your primary care provider is not a Mt Pocono provider we do not have an ordering physician if you were found to fall under the above criteria, therefore our hands would be tied. As far as your weight is concerned, we normally don’t need an order for a patient to be weighed, from my understanding, you are on a medication that is managed based on your weight, if this is correct medication management would be the only reason we would need an order.
That said, please accept my apology for what you feel was terrible experience, is our goal to provide the best care possible to every one of our patients.
Sincerely,
Laura McGee RN, MSN