A few years ago I went in for a colonoscopy. I was in a lot of pain and the girl taking the info. out of the clear blue sky asked me what bank I used. Yes, a red flag did go up...but I was in pain....and thankgoodness did not give her the correct bank. Gave her one with mortgages. Sure enough, identity theft. They used my name and address to try and break into this bank. Did it all on the computer. The bank just sent us a letter stating the change in the pin number had been changed. This was the day before Thanksgiving. We called the bank and told them this was fraud. They have the nerve to tell us that they didn't know if we were really were who we said we were and had to be at the bank the first thing in the morning after the holiday to cancel this account. I was furious. I now go to the sheriff's department. Couldn't even go up to see him...just talked on the phone down stairs. He said, (I quote) do you know how many people we have working on identiy theft???? I said. NO...He says "Your talking to him". Can you believe this. Well, we stopped the theft and since a crime was not committed, they could do nothing about it. Plus, we don't know what computer she used to do this. Think about this. She did everything from a name, address, and bank. I could not tell the doctor about this because if I identified her, I could be sued since I would be accusing her of a crime. I should have sent a letter without identifying myself but didn't. I'm disgusted with myself I didn't. I was stupid and pain or no pain I did not use my head!!!! But I never never never give out my social. Also, why do Doctor's offices need to know where you were born. My theft was just giving an address and a bank. Think what they can do with your address, age, date of birth and where you were born. I'm saying this because tomorrow I'm going to a new doctor and they have already asked where I was born on the phone. I stopped the conversation before they were completed. We are being paranoid, but I've had this theft twice now. The first time was my credit card. You are not safe in a doctor's office. You really don't know who these people are you're giving this info to. Give as little as possible. 's

Could I ask if this was regular eye doctor, an eye specialist or an a eye super specialist? I ask because my husband has had appointments with one of Toronto's super specialists - appointments were booked for 9:00 a.m. and those in the know take lunch and dinner with them - they often turned into all-day events. But this specialist does Vitrectomies, detached retina eye surgeries, that type of thing and there aren't that many Toronto doctors who perform these surgeries. Most of the patients are diabetics - my husband is one of the few who is not, so on a first visit a person with diabetes has a problem with food. Food sharing then happens. Then we have the various levels of more junior eye specialists - some being too senior to do say cataract surgery so you are referred to a lower specialist. Quite the ordeal. The wait times differ depending on the specialist. The optometrist is very good - usually on time. She does Part 1 of the exam, then puts in the drops and has people return to the waiting room for a few minutes while she takes care of a few other matters and then is ready to see the patient with the drops as soon as the drops have done their bit. Of course with me, the drops burn off immediately and I never get blurry eyes. I think you should sleep on your letter and then decide what to do. Years ago I had to see a specialist - every time you would swear that you were in a bus terminal full of people. The receptionist would always tell people that the doctor had been called out on an emergency. So one day one of my fellow patients stood up and asked how many of us had an appointment booked for 5:00 p.m. - every hand in the room was raised. The receptionist looked scared - not her fault though. It is very common for a few people to have the same appointment time - I think doctors hope that some appointments will be quicker than others. Doesn't always happen though.

Went to PT, filled out seven pages of stuff (boy, medical offices must be drowning in paperwork these days!), and saw a very nice young woman who evaluated my range of motion, etc. She told me the results of my MRI: two inflamed tendons, swollen joint, inflamed muscle, some arthritis, and the possibility of muscle tearing (the MRI didn't rule it out). She said the treatment for this sort of injury is basically the same with or without an MRI. For that reason, most physicians take a wait-and-see attitude about the MRI, and hold off until it can be determined whether or not treatment is helping. So it seems that my teenage doctor jumped the gun with the MRI. Isn't that nice? I know it doesn't carry the sort of risk that a CT scan would (at least I hope it doesn't), but I hate to have anything done unnecessarily. The cost to the insurance company, the waste of my time and gas, etc. Not to mention that lying still in an MRI tube listening to hammering is not my favorite way to spend any amount of time. Twice-weekly treatment is underway. More time, more gas.....but at least this has the potential to do some good. Thanks, everyone!

maifleur01s - none of those apply. I guess then in July of 2017 the office shouldn't have called me at 6.20 am to tell me to go directly to ER to have potassium IVd into me because my test showed it was down to 2.5. I know the numbers it should be within, all they have to tell me is the # rather than keep it from me. I've had docs before who'd call me and tell me. They know how to tell if it is me and who else they can tell (in case I've passed out). I can't even get them to MAIL the results to me. nor am I driving in the heat of the AZ summer (a/c is out in car) if I don't know that my potassium is where it should be. That could be too dangerous. And he had the test results back from the week before when I was in there. when I went to their portal even after they told me the results were there, they weren't. And they said they couldn't help me with that because they knew nothing about how it works.