Well, the last month has been a runaround. I requested Dr. Hagen, a doctor who is an ortho surgeon working at a sports medicine clinic; she prefers working with young active women and specializes in hip arthroplasty (minimally invasive surgeries of the hip). A week later I get a voicemail from my PCP stating the referral was declined because the doctor does not accept patients under 50 years of age. But my PCP has another ortho surgeon she can refer me to. I was confused because Dr. Hagen was seeing my 41-year-old sister-in-law. When I called my PCP back and told her about this, she thought maybe the doctor was reaching her maximum caseload and was using age as a restriction. My brother and sister-in-law told me sometime surgeons will take on a new patient if they are family of a current patient. So, while I was waiting for the referral for the other ortho doctor to go through, I sent an email to the Sports Medicine clinic. Luckily they emailed me back right away stating that Dr. Hagen prefers younger patients and they would look into why my referral was declined. Ten minutes later I received another email stating my referral was sent to the bone and joint ortho clinic, which does not accept patients under 50 years of age, not the sports medicine clinic where Dr. Hagen practices. They had my information sent over from the joint clinic and approved my referral right away. Within 20 minutes, I had an appointment scheduled with one of the top hip sports medicine doctors in the state! I am through the moon!!
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