what a crappy week... well more than a week...

feeling pretty crappy today... after a string of things that happened to make this week really really crappy...

this blog entry is gonna get a bit whingy so sorry but if u dont like whinging then dont read this...

where do i start...
hmmm last saturday 5th dec, 2009... i'm in the process of moving at the moment. have just bought a new bed, fridge, aircon from harvey norman. they were to be delivered on sat. firstly they called to say they were coming between 7:30 and 9am which is fine. i decided to sleep at the place on a mattress on the floor. i woke up pretty sore. and they ended up coming at 6:45!!!! so i was still asleep.
then the stupid delivery people broke one of the legs of the bed. and i was downstairs with one guy installing the fridge so i didnt know until they had gone and i went upstairs to look at the disassembled bed.
so i call harvey norman. totally hopeless. they did offer to send a guy around but not to replace it or anything. so anyway dad and i used liquid nails and some metal nails to put it back together.

so here's my total bagging of harvey norman. they are crap and dont do anything when their movers break your brand new furniture!

monday morning at work. a patient brought in her 1 yr old baby. crankiest baby i've ever met. she's never ever smiled for me. every time she's in she's cranky when her mother doesnt give her attention. anyway, the mum was in cos she had a bad headache (i'm not surprised). baby was crying so mum thought she'd come in and carry the baby. but the baby kept wailing so mum brought her back into the room. i asked the mum to get up and calm the baby down. but too late... the baby worked herself up so much that she spewed all over my mum and the floor and all over in my front treatment room. and it stunk so badly!!

today was the worst day at work. for the most part i enjoy what i do... but some patients just really ruin my day.
i have this one patient that takes the cake...
he walked in a while ago asking about consultation and charges etc. i told him about concession fees and he basically told me 'i'm not paying that. it's too expensive.' so i told him to go elsewhere.
i dont want to sound callous but basically i do have to eat and with the business loan i'm still not paying myself. compared to chiros around we are at the lower end of the scale for charges considering we do half hour consultations which are considered to be long consultations. the CAA recommends we charge 3 times the amount that we do for the time spent with each patient.

anyway so the guy went away and got a medicare referral from a GP. which is good cos it means he gets 5 free visits. today he came in for his 3rd visit. he basically spent 10 mins screaming at me. he said 'i have a bone to pick with you. last time i was in you spent 40 mins with me and the time before that it was just under an hour.'
so i said to him that our consultation time is 30mins as in we book patients in half hour blocks.
he said it's too short that he needs at least an hour. so i told him that's fine but i will charge him a double consultation. medicare will cover the first part and he needs to pay for the rest. he told me that's unacceptable. so i told him i could refer him to another clinic if he prefers.
he was going on about his chiro in the city that spent at least an hour on him and charged him practically nothing so i told him to go back to that chiro. the remaining medicare consultations can be transferred to that chiro. he wouldnt have it and i wasnt going to back down. so i told him he could try out other clinics in the area then. good luck to him because i know that we are the cheapest clinic in the area with the longest consult time (because we do like to be thorough). but we cant work for nothing. dont get me wrong there is room for compassion when i know somebody is doing it tough financially but this isnt the way to go about it.

anyway so he got me so worked up. i was so pissed off. i told him to go elsewhere but he insisted on making another appointment with me next week. i dont know why if he is so insistant that he isnt getting value for his money.
i trained for 6 years and still have a big HECS debt. i do deserve to charge for my services and dont think our charges are unreasonable. so he's one patient that i really dont want. i'm not backing down. it just really pisses me off and spoils the day to have him as a patient.
grrrrrrrrr i'm still so pissed off....