Reply #27: it's not an issue of DOING the test

[TorchTheWitch]

The issue is obtaining the report of that test. It could be on the desk of the person who wrote it and hasn't even made it to the Records Dept. yet. Actually, I'd find it pretty likely that it's in limbo somewhere between the possession of the person that wrote it and the file in the Records Dept. In all honesty, sometimes it can take over a YEAR to get a legible copy of everything requested from a hospital.

It often is the case where you have to go raise hell at the hospital in person or involve hospital administration or your client in lighting a fire under someone's ass to cough up the information requested. That's why there is a market for document retrieval companies... hospitals and doctors are REALLY bad at getting to the requester legible copies of everything requested in a timely manner.

To make matters worse, hospitals don't have all the records on a particular patient (even a particular case of a paticular patient) all in one file... the records are spread out in different places depending on the type of record and who did what that required a record. Some documents never go to the Records Dept. at all and remain in the possession of the doctor or deptartment that produced the record. It seems pretty unorganized and stupid, but that's what they do... maybe they have their own reasons for doing it that way.