Welcome Natalie,
I am very sorry to hear of the difficulty and rude behavior you report encountering by, apparently, one of the staff schedulers at Dr. Natale''s secondary center at CPMC in San Francisco where Dr Natale does ablations 5 days out of every month.
While it is not always possible for any scheduler to always be able to confirm a fixed consult and ablation date right away after the initial phone call that includes the transfer of the requested medical documents, including any recent Echocardiograms and EKGs demonstrating the actual arrhythmia, it is nevertheless very true that there is absolutely no excuse for excessive delay in returning a call well beyond the promised date to get back to you, and even less excuse for any unfriendly or rude behavior for Pete's sake!
And definitely anything other than a courteous, helpful and timely response to a new prospective patient, is a certain violation of what Dr Natale expects and demands from his staff and he will NOT at all be pleased to hear of your experience!
I have sent you a PM as well Natalie, so just click on the link and please send me your cell number so I can speak with you and your husband ASAP to get a better understanding of all that went on with this scheduler during her interactions with either you or your husband and I can assure you we will be this sorted out!
It has been a while since I have been at CPMC and there has been some staff roll over the last couple of years, so I don't know every one there now as I used too, and as I do still at Dr Natale's main center at St Davids Medical Center where the majority of his patients go and find a very consistently positive level of experience with the staff there.
I have seen a few times over the past 3 years where there has been a slow response from one or two of the staff at CPMC, and then issues were taken to correct that at the time with apparent success in those individual cases. And new staff has been brought in.
Since I do not know of anyone there name 'Cindy' that you reported speaking with ... assuming that is the right name ... I am unaware of her history there or even how long she has worked there, but will certainly get to the bottom of this and find out.
One reality is the fact that since Dr Natale is only at CPMC in San Fran 5 days a month, and the other 3 weeks the staff works for Dr Hao and Hongo whom Dr Natale helped mentor there, this gives only a week a month for Dr Natale to exert more of his own guidance on the full staff who only see him 5 days a month.
At St Davids he essentially runs the whole show in Austin and every one of the staff is on the same page and basically work as a well-oiled machine there.
One thing for sure, though, is that where ever Dr Natale is performing ablations including at CPMC, the patients get 110% of his attention, skill and effort the entire time there are in his EP Lab, and that of his entire EP-Lab staff too, so you never need be concerned with that as the testimony of so many hundreds of his patients on this forum can attest too over the years.
And while I can certainly very much appreciate how frustrated you must feel with this surprisingly uninviting interaction with who we presume is one of the schedulers now at CPMC that I am unaware of, one thing for sure too is that she is certainly not representing Dr Natale's wishes and guideline for respectful and courteous treatment of all patients ... at least based on what you have shared with us above.
But at the same time, I urge caution about giving up on trying to secure Dr Natale as your husband's EP which I am sure can be arranged to your satisfaction and without you needing to be referred from some US cardiologist .... when I first went to Dr Natale many years ago I flew in from Amsterdam Netherlands where I was living then and did not need a referring Doc to see him then.
The main point here is that this should not have happened with this staff person, but don't let someone in a clerical staff position dissuade you from connecting directly with Dr Natale for the long term benefit of your husband's heart care!! That would really be a shame. This issue will get sorted out. And I suspect like the large numbers of folks here on this forum can directly attest, you will be very glad you did as it is worth the effort!
There are other good EPs out there for sure, but very few in the same league with Dr Natale in terms of skill level and certainly in terms of overall experience with the most challenging kind of cases such as persistent and long standing persistent AFIB .. I can promise you there are not "lots of great EP choices out there who share a similar level of experience with these challenging cases, such as the kind case apparently your husband has too with his persistent AFIB at the young age of 46!
If you prefer, you could arrange to go to Austin, but your husband will do fine as well with his procedure done at CPMC too ... once this one uncalled for bottle neck is resolved.
I look forward to speaking with you both in the next day or two and no worries!
Be well,
Shannon
email:
editor@afibbers.org