Amcare misdiagnosed 11month old and will not rectify situation...
5/12/02 - our 11 month old son woke with a fever, vomiting and diarrhea. It was a Sunday, so we took our son to Doctor's Urgent Care in Middletown/Franklin Ohio. He was given a cursory examination and diagnosed with an ear infection and prescribed an antibiotic. As the day progressed, his condition worsened. Late the same afternoon, we took our son to the Children's Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio. The physician diagnosed our son with a gastrointestinal virus, indicated that there was absolutely NO ear infection present and further advised that our son was mildly dehydrated due to lack of proper initial treatment and if we had waited until morning for a second examination he would have been hospitalized. Luckily, we were able to treat the viral symptoms as directed by the emergency room physician and within a few days his condition improved.
05/14/02 — received a call from Doctor's Urgent Care asking how our son was doing. Explained above situation and she stated that the physician who diagnosed the ear infection was new and had numerous prior complaints. She also stated she would make the situation known to her superiors.
07/09/02 — received a letter from Amcare, apparantly the parent company stating that they needed records of our son's emergency room visit to "further evaluate your concerns." The letter went on to say that they would not accept phone calls regarding the issue but expected all questions to be submitted in writing. Further, it also stated that if they did not hear from us in 30 days the complaint will be closed out. (We found it amazing that they took 8 weeks to respond to our initial complaint and we had 30 days to respond to their demands).
07/28/02 - sent all information provided by Children's hospital provided at discharge to Amcare.
09/01/02 - again, received correspondence from Amcare stating that the information received at discharge was not good enough and they needed the actual hospital records. We sent a request for same to the records department at the hospital, request was received on 09/13/02. The records department verbally indicated that they were in the process of moving and it may take some time to obtain the records.
10/07/02 - received further correspondence from Amcare stating we had 10 days to provide the records or the complaint would be closed. Letter once again indicated that all questions needed to be submitted in writing.
10/12/02 - sent correspondence to Amcare stating records have been requested.
10/29/02 - had finally received records and immediately forwarded to Amcare, and since then, nothing.
We had sincerely hoped that Amcare would investigate this issue.in retrospect, we've determined that they deliberately strung out this complaint knowing it would be impossible for us to obtain the records they demanded in such a short timeframe and they could in turn "close out the complaint." We had no control over the hospital and could not demand that they provide the records immediately to comply with Amcare's internal policy.
We felt this issue was of particular concern for many reasons:
Parents tend to trust physician's and knowing that this company let someone treat our child with numerous prior complaints on file is pure negligence.
Our child was needlessly ill for several hours in between the Urgent Care visit and the emergency room visit, and given unnecessary antibiotics which worsend the situation.
Our guess? The doctor sees multiple ear infections everyday and just immediately diagnosed an ear infection without doing a thorough examination.
Finally, we have paid for a medical visit, paid $21.78 for medical records and have spent a fair amount of time corresponding (in writing of course since they don't accept calls) with a company who apparantly had no intention of investigating the complaint and deliberately placed a timeline for providing information that they knew could not be adhered to so technically the case was "closed."
At this point, we want absolutely nothing from this company, and never expected anything more than an apology. Its enough to voice our concerns in a public forum and know that others are warned about utilizing Urgent Care centers that fall under the AMCARE/DOCTOR'S URGENT CARE name. Be warned, they really couldn't care less about your child. We're just grateful that our son was fine but fear that misdiagnosis of a more severe problem could cause another patient lasting harm.
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