The limits of amateurism and the sublime but criminal incompetence of inertial "health care" medical bureaucracy.

When asked how to pronounce Joe Btfsplk's last name, cartoonist Al Capp demonstrated this sound by closing his lips, leaving his tongue sticking out, and then blowing out air, which is colloquially called a 'raspberry' or Bronx cheer. "How else would you pronounce it?"

The A/C huffed it again yesterday. Like before, the outside unit just doesn't kick on. Experts on way today. The contractors to finish the inner work on the bay window also didn't show yesterday, but are going to be here today. We can all swelter together. In the meantime, I've been trying to get an appointment with the company that provided my first pair of diabetic shoes for a replacement pair for over a week as the old ones are disintegrating faster than the gorilla glue can hold them together. But before I could even get an appointment, I had to provide signed statements of my willingness for them to check my medical records as well as a prescription. That was easy, as the wound doctor was happy to provide one. Rx in hand, I drove straight from the doc's to the Biotech Limb and Brace Company and did my part. And waited, and waited. Checking every day, I was told by the Biotech people said they were waiting on the insurance-required medical records to be forwarded by my wound doc and my primary care physician. So, every day, or twice a day, I would follow up with the doctors' offices asking them to get the documents to Biotech. The wound doc's office was right on top of it, but the primary doc's bureaucracy just couldn't be motivated. Finally yesterday, sweltering with the A/C out anyway and frustrated at the non-appearance of the contractors, I blew up. When told by the primary doc's records people that they were waiting (as they had been for a week) for a specially-designated contractor to come copy my medical records before they could forward them to Biotech, I said: "Look, do you mean to tell me that the simple copying of records -- the custody and maintenance of which is YOUR ENTIRE JOB THAT YOU ARE PAID TO DO BY DR. (REDACTED) -- is so beyond your own competence that you cannot do it without the hiring of an outside contractor?!?!? Do you perhaps need instruction in the operation of xerox machines? Can you not hit the print button on a computer screen? Are you really admitting to me that not only are you are that stupid, but that Dr. (Redacted) is PAYING you to be that stupid? I'll tell you what, how about I come down there, find Dr. (Redacted)and ask him directly why it is that he is paying you to get nothing accomplished to the detriment of his own patients?"

Or words to that effect.

The answer? When I call Biotech to find out if that was enough to motivate the forwarding of the required documents, I am told that I have indeed motivated the primary doc's bureaucracy, but only to the extent that it has been agreed that they (Biotech) cannot give me an appointment because I have not been seen by my primary doc in his office (although he has visited me, and billed me, for visits when I was in the hospital) for more than six months, hence this is proof that he is not responsible for my diabetic treatment. She asked, Who is responsible for my diabetic treatment?

I did not curse. I am proud of that. In the long and detailed denunciation of medical bureaucracy that followed, I did not curse. Long story short (too late), I decided that the wound care doc was now "responsible for my diabetic treatment," and they gave the required written assurances to Biotech. I have an appointment for Friday morning. It would have been today, but I have to be home (sweltering) for the various contractors to do their professional best.

Joe, is that you hiding in the bushes?