I just spent 2 hrs waiting for a routine blood test. I stress waiting, because I didn’t actually get my blood drawn. I gave up when I did the math and realized I would have to spend at least another hour waiting.

My doctor has outsourced simple bloodwork to a company called LabCorp. You can’t make an appointment, and it’s clear when you walk into their third-world facilities why. I went to two facilities this morning. The first one had one woman at the desk answering questions and refilling piss container bins, and another person in the back doing everything else. There were about 5 people when I got there. Half an hour later, one person had been admitted. I turned to a woman to my left and asked how long she had been waiting: “An hour and 20 minutes.”

Great. So I was in store for a 5 hr wait.

I asked the receptionist/piss-container-filler if there was another LabCorp facility nearby. She said there was, about a 5 minute walk away. She called and after a 2-minute interchange, told me that they weren’t busy.

I raced over there (along with 2 other people). The waiting room had 3 people. Better. After 40 minutes of waiting, not a single person had been called.

The problem is that collection and analysis seem to happen at the same facility. This is mind-blowingly stupid. But, in insurance companies’ bid to pinch pennies at our lives’ expense, this is what we have to deal with. Fucking LabCorp.

Let me tell you how it should be done. In the Netherlands (ranked near the top of international tables rating the quality of healthcare, and paying substantially less than we do here), you get your blood drawn at your doctor’s office, by a nurse. Then they pack the vials into a special sealed container and give it to you. It’s stamped and addressed. They tell you to drop it off at a mailbox (one was conveniently right outside my doctor’s office in Rotterdam). It’s mailed to one of two national facilities that do nothing but analyze blood and piss. My doctor gets the results a few days later.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., you’re waiting a few days just to get your blood drawn.

Someone’s started a blog; register your complaints there. Please.