exsqueeze me

I'm in the process of making sure that my doctors take my new insurance and have privileges at the preferred hospital. So this morning I called my endocrinologist's office and asked if he had privileges at that hospital. The conversation went something like this:

me: Does Dr. Blah have privileges at XYZ hospital?
her: Who is this?
me: I'm one of Dr. Blah's patients.
her: Why do you want to know?
me: Because I've changed jobs and insurances and I want to make sure that I don't have to change doctors, too.
her: Well, what insurance do you have now?
me: I'm covered by the You-Better-Hope-You-Don't-Get-Sick company.
her: Oh, good, we accept that one. You should be fine to stay with us.
me: I knew he accepted the insurance. My question was if he had privilegs at XYZ hospital.
her: I can't answer that.
me: Why not?
her: Because I can't.
me: Then can I talk to someone who can answer the question?
her: It's not that easy.
me: It's not a hard question.
her: He doesn't always go to XYZ hospital.
me: But he sometimes goes?
her: Dr. Blah wants his patients to go to the Princess Hospital instead.
me: That's where my last surgeries were, but my new insurance wants me to go to XYZ. Does he or does he not see his patients who are having surgeries there?
her: I can't answer that.
me: I don't understand why you can't. It's not violating anything to tell me.
her: Well, sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't. It depends on if he wants to or not. It's not a blanket decision, but done by a case-by-case basis.
me: Then can I talk to someone who can answer the question if he would take care of me in XYZ hospital if I had to have another surgery secondary to my diagnosis of thyroid cancer?
her: Nobody can answer that question.
me: Are you seriously telling me that nobody in the office can answer this question? Not even Dr. Blah?
her: Yes.
me: Well, that helps me to make up my mind. Thank you for your time.

And then I hung up the phone and shoved a Phillip's screwdriver into my eye socket because that was less painful. I've already looked into finding a new endocrinologist who has privileges at XYZ hospital, but I need to get a copy of my chart from the run-around office (and I need to do that relatively quickly so that I can get an appointment and plan for whatever we end up doing this spring/summer).

Tonight The Hater and I put down the first part of our down payment for the new home that we're building. We should get to move in the first week of July. For now the framing and outside walls are up, and they've shingled the roof, too. Sometime in the next week we're going to schedule a meeting with the design team to pick out the innards. We're a little nervous and a lot excited about the idea of moving into our first home this summer.