Notes&Queries
Ain’t our Alberta Health Care system cute? In Alberta, medical specialists won’t renew prescriptions. They tell you to go to your GP. They’ve sent your GP a letter, they say, in which they’ve described the medication you need. But your GP is very busy and you can’t get an appointment. Everything is unchanged, you tell the GP. But your GP keeps his records electronically. Paper is scanned and stored by date in your electronic file. If you have a serious illness that requires multiple specialists or spans a few months, your GP may receive several letters about you. How will your GP find the particular letter in which one particular specialist lists your meds? This is a major chore for which billing AHC is tricky. And given the substantive errors this writer has seen in letters from specialists (who don’t have time to proofread their mail carefully before it goes out), your GP is going to think you’re taking X instead of Y drug. In days of old, your pharmacist faxed the specialist whose office simply renewed the meds prescription by return fax. Now? The GP must receive a particular letter, note its special contents, find it again, plus handle the renewal prescription that was a one-step process in the past. Wonderful!
