Doctor changes

So, I get a letter in the mail from my primary care physicians office saying that in order to be transparent, they want to acknowledge that it's been challenging trying to access care to the provider I have been seeing for the past 5 years. Ya, no kidding. I tried to schedule my annual wellness exam last SEPTEMBER and they told me she didn't have any appointments until MARCH. I then asked to be seen by another of their providers (they have several in the office) and was told they want to keep patients with the same provider, so I reluctantly agreed to wait 6 whole months.

Now this letter. It states she went part time a year ago, after coming back from maternity leave, then she decided to focus that part time on mostly just specializing in seeing eating disorder patients. Well, ya, then there is no way to continue timely care on your regular patients! On the back of the letter they listed several other providers in the area, including one in their office. Now I'm a little miffed that they didn't schedule me with someone else in their office when I asked back in September. It takes 6 months or more to get a wellness visit scheduled and apparently just about impossible to see her, if I had something come up I needed to be seen for right away. Not acceptable.

Back in Sept I thought about switching to a different office/provider (still in their same network, though). It's an office right near where I always am when I go to the city, near mom, near shopping, bank, etc. It's also the office I have to go to for the mammogram and yearly blood draw, so it just makes sense to start using this office and one of their providers, rather than driving all the way to the other end of the city. Plus I will be moving mom from this office, too, to use the geriatric doctor the memory care place is set up with. I should have just switched then, but I didn't.

So, I got online with MyChart and set up an appointment with a provider at this closer place. I actually have enough of my refill meds to get me thru almost mid April. This new providers earliest appointment available is March 16 (about 10 days after the one I scheduled with my old provider) but at least for a new patient this doctor is only 2 months out, not 6. Plus this new provider is an MD, where my old one was an FNP. Once that appointment was set up, I then canceled the appointment with the old provider.  Going to this office, when I need to go to a doctor appointment will save me probably a half hour in driving time, overall, so it will be better anyway.