Appointment, what appointment?

I arrived at the doctors office this morning about 15 minutes early. The doctors office is a Neurology center in Charleston. Their services are highly sought out and it is difficult at best to land an appointment.

The appointment was set several weeks out. Maybe it was more like 6 weeks out. They mailed me a new patient packet in the mail. I called the new patient coordinator and asked if she could email me the new patient packet documents. When I received them I filled them out in Adobe Pro and sent the attachments to the new patient coordinator. She replied back that I would have to print it out and take it with me to the doctors appointment at the assigned date and time.

This is 2023 so as a technology worker I assumed (my mistake) that they would be able to scan in the data into their EHR vs having some poor smuck in the front office having to type in all of the patient information. So, I printed it out and put it on my desk at home so I could take it with me.

I got there this morning and the admitting office asked me if I had canceled my appointment which I replied no. After they read the notes on my appointment I was informed that the scheduling person canceled my appointment because they could not get ahold of me to confirm it. The coordinator has my email address. Did they not think to ping me via email? No, of course not. Their office policy and processes does not allow appointment confirmation via other means than using a phone call.