Complaint Review: Presbyterian Healthcare

Presbyterian Healthcare has a long-standing pattern of discriminating against older female patients. Recently, they terminated my own care, and the ensuing experience has been eye-opening to say the least.

A treatment I recieved for three years at Presbyterian Infusion Center was abruptly halted in February 2017, simply because a new medical director didn't "believe" in it. I, along with numerous other female patients--mostly over fifty years of age--were given the bum's rush and booted out of the Infusion Center.

No alternative healthcare of any kind was offered. There was no effort to gradually reduce dosage before stopping the treatment, which is a standard protocol for ending long-term IVa of this nature. (IV vitamin solutions.) 

I've never even met the medical director who made this decision. When I pressed him via the front desk staff, he ultimately provided a brief letter stating that my care was being ended because he didn't understand the treatment and wanted a Rheumatologist to sign off on it within the next month. A letter I sent to him by certified mail, asking for time to find a Rheumatologist and help finding an alternative, was never answered.

A letter to Presbyterian CEO Dale Maxwell also went unanswered. Pleas to Presbyterian Customer Service were of no use.

As the deadline for stopping my treatments approached, I got  a call out of the blue from High Desert Rheumatology. They had an immediate appointment with Dr. Annem available. 

At the appointment, I was astonished at how hostile the doctor was. She laughed at me when I nervously tried to discuss my health history, ignored me when I asked questions and flung the door open for me when I asked for help transitioning off of the infusions. Shocked, I left when the doctor invited me to. From that point forward, Presbyterian maintained that I had been treated by this doctor and until very recently, I was not permitted an appointment with another Rheumatologist.

A grievance I filed about this encounter was revealing. Presbyterian Customer Service dismissed my complaint. I appealed and explained that my health history includes being a survivior of cancer that was diagnosed at age 9, leading to PTSD surrounding medical care. I told them this in an attempt to explain how serious the event was.

The response I got back claimed that Presbyterian Customer Service had rifled through my medical records in a search for PTSD treatments and, finding none (they exist, just not in medication form), Presbyterian pitied me. They also informed me that there would be no further discussion of my complaint. 

Attempts to find another infusion provider have resulted in numerous exchanges of this nature, with no actual healthcare being provided. A Presbyterian lawyer weighed in and advised me to seek a prior authorization for out of network care and to appeal that when it was denied. I was given this advice because the way I and the other patients had our care terminated, we had no meand for appeal. None. We were all simply sent home to die. 

With the infusions, I was working, gardening, dancing and volunteering. Without the infusions, I cannot walk, I can't meet productivity for the job and am again unemployed. Riding in vehicles is excrutiating and I live in level-10 pain all of the time. 

I worry that the other patients who lost their care are also in trouble. Some were likely able to afford care at privately operated clinics, but I have heard of several women who didn't have that option. The last I heard, one of these was trying to treat the unfolding health crisis with a $35 device bought from Amazon. Like me, she suffered terribly when her infusions were abruptly stopped.

None of this means anything to Presbyterian. 

As I've struggled with my own situation, many other women have come forward with similar concerns. Also, several surviving faminly members have spoken on behalf of older women who died because Presbyterian systematically fails to take female patients seriously. Untreated pain is typical, as is the denial of vital care.

This discriminatory atmosphere permeates all levels of Presbyterian Healthcare's culture. 

The treatments involved are not expensive. The wholesale cost of the supplies and ingredients for a typical vitamin infusion is about $50. 

For reasons not wholly understood yet, these inexpensive treatments hold great value for some patients. Effective at controlling pain and chronic infection, the infusions have only very minor side-effects like increased thirst for an hour or so.

There was no medical reason to stop the treatments. There was no financial reason to stop the treatments; all known alternatives are more expensive. The treatments were stopped because the population benefiting from them is regarded as disposable. Our health needs were not taken seriously.