UAB Medicine (University Of Alabama At Birmingham) practices what I call the "waiting game" in all of their medical offerings. I encountered this as a patient on multiple occasions (I go through the examples in the video) & could recognize what they are really doing without much effort. UAB are, in reality, "client snobs".
UAB uses artificial scarcity as a leverage, they want customers to think they don't have enough resources to go around to see them in a timely fashion, when in fact they possess means to occupy 80 square blocks of real estate in downtown Birmingham. UAB wants patients to think their services are magic and they can't live without them. They act like their customers don't have options. UAB's offerings are over-hyped and in fact, quality-deficient.
Through such practices, UAB repeatedly has shown it has little regard for the urgency to which their patients need to receive healthcare & this ill-regard is being recognized to a wider extent by outside observers.
I read a patient review from the UAB Medicine satellite in Leeds, Alabama. Here an 80 year old patient diagnosed with congestive heart failure and diabetes was called & told the day before her regular 6 month check up appointment was being cancelled and moved 7+ months into the future, the result was this person would not have seen a primary care physician in 1 and 1/2 years.
Alabamians (supposedly the home of "southern hospitality") do not need this kind of business being practiced in their communities.
- Hear my recorded telephone call where to see a primary care physician (family doctor) in a Leeds, AL. Satellite in 2023 I was quoted a 8 MONTH waiting list. I show pictures of the parking lot of the facility on a random day where MANY empty parking spaces can be seen. It is obvious 8 months worth of backed up patients are not desperately waiting here.
- I also describe standing 5 HOURS in their hospital Emergency Department in 2019 and never being admitted, I was triaged and had a broken skull head trauma where 6 inches diameter infection showed up in an MRI around a month later. By 2 am I couldn't stand any longer and was so fatigued I had to leave and go home. Despite their triage scheme, it was obvious they could actually see more patients than they were allowing. Patients who arrived via ambulance & helicopter (who were undoubtedly indebted with extra charges to the hospital) were rushed to the back, skipping the queue.
- Finally, I was referred to a UAB neurologist in 2019 where I waited 3 MONTHS on a list only to be called on month 3 and told my appointment was cancelled due to the neurology location (& Dr. Mina Lobbous, MD) moving to Gardendale. They wanted me to wait an additional fourth month but I cancelled to protest their awful and inconsiderate system.
