Yesterday this guy came into the office and had a slightly unpleasant conversation with me. I was just thinking about it and I was kind of an ass to him but thinking back, I'm glad I was. This guy came into the office on a Friday afternoon about 4-5 weeks ago and asked if we would have records on his son. His son is going into the military and the military wants ALL of his medical history and they, according to the dad, were making a big deal about not having a record of his surgery. Well, the guy is over 21 and his surgery was well over 10 years ago. What this means is that we are not obligated to have medical records for him (charts over 10 years old, as long as the patient is 21 y/o, can legally be thrown away). So I explained that to the guy the first time and I said I would call him IF we had any records but that I wouldn't count on it.

He comes into the office yesterday and says "I was here a few weeks ago asking about my son's records..." and I tell him that I looked and that we don't have them. So then he gets upset and says that he "drove all the way here from SUMNER". Sumner is not far from Auburn, in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Sumner borders Auburn in some spots. And then he says "you were supposed to call," which is NOT true, I said I would call if I found anything. I suppose it would have been courtesy to call him and tell him no, but I told him I'd only call if I found the chart. Regardless of all that, he's complaining about driving all this way, why didn't HE CALL if he's going to make a big deal about driving ALL THE WAY TO AUBURN. Then he asked where the records were and I said they were destroyed and he asks why we would do that. I tell him it's common practice in medical facilities to destroy records over 10 years old, otherwise they would just accumulate in great mass. However, the truth is that records over 10 years old rarely serve any purpose at present time (no more than a patient's recollection of their medical history, and even that is practically useless for treatment). So he leaves in a huff. My boss was in the waiting room and didn't say anything to me so apparently I handled it appropriately.

Oh, but what's fucked up... and I'm not usually lazy like this when it comes to my job... I looked downstairs the Monday after he asked me (so, 4 weeks ago) and the chart was downstairs, but it was supposed to have been purged a week earlier and was still in our basement by mistake. So I was lazy and lied. Ultimately, though, no facility should be asking for records that old and they shouldn't care if the records are not available. Also, from a business standpoint, this guy was not going to pay for the records so there was no financial incentive whatsoever to releasing these records free of charge.

I'm going to have my biggest paycheck next Friday. Over 10 hours of overtime. Which to a lot of people isn't that much, but to someone used to working 7:30 to 3:00 it is.