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Originally Posted by kirklancaster
I do not understand why the reception desk in all the doctor's surgeries I have ever been in, have to open directly onto the patient's waiting room.
It is relatively inexpensive to incorporate a separate reception room - a stud wall and door - with each patient collecting a paper 'number' from the dispenser as they enter the waiting room, then being buzzed in as the number is electronically displayed above the door.
The most intimate of details can then be given in the strictest privacy.
Along with over a dozen other seated patients in the waiting room, I have unwillingly overheard the most personal details being given to the receptionists in my doctors, including the names and addresses of really elderly infirm patients - hardly a safe or wise situation considering that drug addicts and burglars could have been among those waiting patients.
In addition to the above, of course, is the potentially highly embarrassing - and apparently mandatory - divulging of the nature of one's illness in such a public area.
On the subject of the disposition of receptionists, I am an eternal extrovert and joker and have never shirked from joking with the receptionists at my doctors, but I have only encountered a few 'sour faced unfriendly' ones in all the years that I have been registered at my surgery, and the rest have been very personable and ultra friendly, civil, polite, and helpful.
I cannot complain, because I have never been asked the nature of my illness by any of my doctor's receptionists, but I sympathise with anyone who has.
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That is odd. I'm sure it happens occasionally in the US too but when we took my grandmother in for her pre-surgery consult, they put us in a small closet (
literally) with a computer, some cabinets and enough room for two chairs.... It was difficult, but we managed to fit 3-4 people in there
We had to do all the paperwork then, they took our information and did the exchange of information then, including what # and id we would use to give family members to call the hospital. This was in addition to the pre-surgery meeting we had with one of the doctor's at the surgeon's practice who went over the details of the actual surgery itself.
The day of the surgery was a simple check in, asked questions like which doctor and then they checked her into a room. That's where they asked her which leg so they could mark it so as to prevent any mix-ups... and other pertinent information.
I'm going to assume that the US is stricter about handling patient information because of HIPAA. My friends in medical have to be very careful that they aren't aren't sharing too much identifiable information when relating stories because of the same law. We also have to sign a lot of paperwork relating to it so I'd say it's pretty well enforced.
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HIPAA is the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The primary goal of the law is to make it easier for people to keep health insurance, protect the confidentiality and security of healthcare information and help the healthcare industry control administrative costs.
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