This Confirms It

A while back I went to the dentist for a routine visit.  When I signed in for my appointment, there was a line for an email address.  I left it blank.  When I left, I was asked again for my email address, so I went ahead and gave it to her.  The next time I checked my email I had a welcome message from my dentist. Whatever. A couple of days later, I received another email asking me to confirm my appointment, which I did.  I also received a phone call the day before the appointment, which was a little weird, but no big deal.

Dr. Brad recommended some additional work, which would need to happen in two separate visits.  This time I decided to schedule one visit only, not knowing what my schedule would look like that far out.  A couple of days later I received my confirmation email, but I didn't respond, as the appointment was still over a month away.  About two weeks ago, I received a card in the mail asking me to confirm the appointment.  By now I was starting to wonder what the deal was, and tossed the card.  A couple days ago, I received another email.  I did respond to this one, that yes indeedy I was planning to visit the dentist as scheduled.  Go figure.

So I go to the dentist again yesterday.  It sucked by the way, and something is not right, but that's another story.  When I was finished, I made the appointment for the next round of work.  I was going to say something to the scheduler about there not really being a need to confirm the appointment more than once, but I didn't get the chance.  Turns out, their fancy-schmancy scheduling software wasn't working correctly.  The best she could do would be to type my name in the appointment block and give me a handwritten reminder card.

If I hadn't been so ready to go home and lay down for awhile, I would have considered making my annoyed face and pretending it was a huge inconvenience.  But the truth is, the whole episode only confirmed what I have long believed, that the healthcare system is bloated and inefficient with unnecessary specialty areas that only make people think they are getting better care, when in fact they are lucky to get the same quality of care they have always gotten, but at a greater expense of resources.