American Family Care

This is a long one but it’s important for them to see the review so they prayerfully will not treat other patients the same. No two patients are the same. Long story short, i feel like they treated me like i was after pain pills. Long story long… begins now. Tuesday, February 20, my lower back gave out. It was directly in the lower middle portion. I was unable to stand straight up. I went to the orthopedic center walk in clinic. I was given steroids and muscle relaxer. I just thought i moved wrong. Wednesday, the pain was in the same spot. Thursday, February 22, i worked all day in pain and the pain moved to the right side of my back. I could feel a specific spot and was in a lot of pain at work. Because it moved, i decided i would finish my work day in Decatur and then go to American Family Urgent Care in Huntsville, where i live. I got off at 5pm. Drove to AFC on Whitesburg. Due to traffic, I didn’t get there till 545. They close at 6. I completely understand that it’s frustrating when customers show up at the very last minute however, sometimes it can’t be helped. I would not have come if I didn’t feel the need for urgent and immediate care. I apologized when I got to the front counter for appearing so late. The receptionist was very helpful and understanding. They ran my insurance, called me to the back, took my vitals. The triage nurse was also very kind. She gave me a cup to pee in. I peed , went to the room to wait. Mind you I am in excruciating pain and can’t stand up. The doctor, Dr Daphne Berry comes in. She has not reviewed my urine yet. That’s fine, I give her the day by day of what happened, where I’ve been and why I’m there now. As I’m speaking, she’s visibly “mmhmm, ok” in a manner that makes me feel like she’s rushing my story. I refuse to rush though because I don’t just go to the doctor because I have a lot of kids and work full time and I have zero time to go to the doctor or miss any work normally. When I’m done explaining, her response is this…verbatim. “Well if you already went to the orthopedic center, and they gave you those medications, there’s not much else we can do for you. I can check your urine but if it comes back clear, there’s nothing we will be able to do for you. If you’re in that much pain and it’s clear, you will have to go to the emergency room.” IF. As in, she had not reviewed the urine yet. Which is fine. But don’t assume you think it’s already clear. She should have heard my story, checked the urine, THEN if it was clear, stated that. But no one is perfect and I understand they get pill seekers all the time so I just looked at her, said ok and she walked out. She came back in a few minutes later, she said there was a significant amount of blood and bacteria so she wanted to give me Toradol, antibiotics to treat for possible kidney stones, and order a CT scan stat because of the pain I was in or I could go to the emergency room because of the pain. Ok thank you, you believe me now. I told her I would start small first, I would do the treatment for possible kidney stones and accept the outpatient ct scan first and if I feel the emergent need to go to the ER, I would go. So she gives me a shot of Toradol in office, hands me the discharge papers and said the Toradol and antibiotics are ordered in to the pharmacy and they will put the order in for the outpatient ct scan stat. I leave at 610. I get to the pharmacy to pick up the meds and only the Toradol was placed. There was no prescription put in for the antibiotic. Ok no problem, it was the end of the day, they probably forgot. I’ll just call in the morning and request they put it in. I head to work towards Decatur Friday Feb 23. They don’t open till 8. At 8 am? I called them and informed them they forgot to put in the antibiotic. I stated the Toradol did help with the pain but I did need the antibiotic to hopefully begin the treatment of whatever it was. They put the antibiotic in to the pharmacy. Because I work in Decatur, I wasn’t able to pick the antibiotic up till after 6 pm that day. I pick it up after work, begin taking it. Saturday, my throat starts to hurt. Sunday, it’s hard to breathe. Okay 330 am Monday, i go to the emergency room for an allergic reaction. Not AFC or anyone’s fault. No one could have known that. The emergency room switches the antibiotic to a different one. Monday and Tuesday go by, no word yet on the CT scan. I call AFC at 4pm Tuesday to inquire about the location they put the order into because I’m going out of town Wednesday and would like to make sure we are treating the right thing first. The nurse looks it up and says she saw where the doctor ordered the stat ct scan but it was never sent. So she said she will send it and I should receive a call soon. Wednesday, Outpatient Diagnostic Center called at 8am and stated they received the emergent ct scan request. They got me in same day at 1115 in Madison. I attended it and they said the doctor should have the results within a couple of hours. At this point, I told myself I would call them because they clearly weren’t taking anything seriously or paying attention to anything. I called AFC at 4 pm . The nurse said she didn’t see the results and would call me back. She called me back within 5 minutes! Thank you! She stated the doctor said there was a kidney stone and to keep doing what I was doing. I asked the nurse if there was anything I needed to do to assist the passing of the stone because I’ve never had kidney stones before and I’m fixing to go out of town and would like to know what I can do to help move it along. She said lemme put you on hold and ask the doctor because she didn’t want to give me inaccurate medical information. I greatly appreciated her honesty! She came back to the phone 4 minutes later and said that the doctor told her they already gave me pain medication and there was nothing else they could do. The stone hasn’t moved so I shouldn’t be in that much pain. Ummm, one, how do you know it hasn’t moved because that was the first and only ct scan, you didn’t even know if it was a kidney stone before that. Two, didn’t ask for pain pills or pain relief. I specifically stated I have never had it before and wanted education on how to pass it or what to expect. Three, how do you know how much pain I’m supposed to be in? I wasn’t in specific pain anymore. I felt uncomfortable on my right side still but that was never a question. I said that was not what I asked about but nevermind. I would just research it and figure it out and I hung up the phone. Doctors and all those who deal patients or even customers. Yes, one bad apple can potentially ruin the way you see others however, we are all not the same. Not everyone is out for pain pills. Not everyone is making up a health situation, not everyone is lying. You don’t know who is and who isn’t. Yes it was late when I got there, I’m sorry. I had claimants at my job who depended on me to be there so I worked through the pain instead of leaving early to go to the doctor. I stayed later and in pain. I didn’t complain or rush them. You all should not have treated me that way. This kind of treatment makes people not want to go to the doctor at all when something is wrong in fear of reprisal and then those are the ones that die due to not seeking medical attention and then they still get talked about after death. “I don’t know why they didn’t take care of themselves and get help”. Do better.

I went to the huntsville location on wvitesburg drive for severe coughing and feeling ill. They diagnosed bronchitis, and told me they'd prescribe "z pack, inhaler and a cough medicine." they did not tell me what cough medicine at the clinic. They prescribed polytussin, which contains codeine. That alone would have been enough for me to ask that they change the medication. I didn't learn about that until the pharmacist told me I couldn't take one of. My regular nightly medications with the cough syrup. As soon as I heard that, I tried to call the clinic and have it changed, but they did not help me and told me to ask my pharmacist if they could allow substitutions, instead of prescribing a medication that doesn't cause serotonin syndrome with my daily medications. I went back. The next day, after calling, trying to make sure I could at least talk to whatever provider was working. They refused to see me or speak to me, and made the receptionist tell me they couldn't fix the problem. They made that day, even when I told them that medication interacts with one of mine and that it wasn't even touching the cough. I was told it would be the next day before they'd be willing to address their error, meaning I would be going yet another day and night unable to sleep and unable to make it in to work, which they were aware of. I cannot recommend anyone going here, as they do not check for serious contraindications, and would have given me serotonin syndrome had my pharmacist not caught it. I will never be returning to an american family care after the way I was treated.