Health Provider Communication and Transparency

To Timpanogos Regional Hospital:

No one likes to visit the hospital, especially on their own behalf. In the case where a visit is unavoidable, it is great to have a short stay, attended to by courteous professionals. I am happy to report that, when my lung collapsed in June of 2019, this was the case. Unfortunately, my experience post-ICU was less than ideal, particularly when it came time to pay bills.

Separating oneself from a hospital should not feel like being ghosted by a love interest. I got hospital bills for the next two weeks, and I paid them. I got bills from the surgeon, the hospital itself, the emergency room, and the various physical, financial, and emotional councilors. Then I started to get bills with descriptions that I didn’t understand, like “hospitalist, 70 minutes.” So I decided to go Ad Fontes to get some answers from the source.


The hospital didn’t know. The radiologists didn’t know. My surgeon didn’t know. The scheduling people didn’t know. As part of our inheritance from the Enlightenment age of Rationality, The Scientific Method, and learning systems, the Hospital network can sometimes feel disjointed and uninformed. As I’ve learned in my Rhetoric and Civilization class at BYU, and as my classmate Mitchell Bayles pointed out, “ the ‘Age of Reason’ was where people learned the mind was a tool to observe and check observations.” Without the proper information available to me, I was at a loss as to how to proceed with my personal health.

For instance, I knew that I would need a follow-up CT scan three months after the operation. What I didn’t know is that I would be in charge of scheduling that scan, and then making sure that it got to my doctor’s office. I arrived at the office at my appointed time, found that there had been a miscommunication, then was told to get an x-ray instead, which I was billed for. When I finally got in to see the doctor, he said that the CT scan was mandatory. I rearranged my schedule, got in the next week, and paid for an additional scan and an additional appointment.

I do understand that large institutions such as hospitals have to balance information control with openness, especially as they carry so much personal patient data. I know from my own reading that wars (notably World War Two) have hung in the balance over the protection of information. I only hope that, in our current era of information share-ability and security, the overall health care system will develop the infrastructure to be able to provide patients with the tools to manage their own health and finances.

Sincerely,
Adam Tayler