I just had my first appointment with Dr. Thomme of Borgess Women's Health after seeing a different gynegologist for 20 years. I was having menopausal issues and felt I needed a new prospective. Dr. Thomme and the staff at Borgess Women's Health were all very helpful. I got answers that I have been searching for. She and her staff took their time and I felt that they understood me better than any doctor I've visited in a long time. I would highly recommend their practice!!! read more

In the process of switching practices, while my FMLA coverage was active, I called Sedgwick to check to see if I could take time off work while my claim was active. They said that was fine as long as it was pregnancy related. Then I called Borgess Women's Health and spoke to Paula regarding the same question. She is the one that processes all the medical related paperwork. She told me yes I could take time off as long as it was related to the pregnancy and she also said that in some cases they could backdate certain things as long as it pertained to the pregnancy. So, assuming I was okay, I took a few days off prior to meeting with Doctor Winter that same week. When I finally met with Doctor Winter I told him I had my FMLA paperwork and he told me he couldn't backdate anything and that it was against Borgess's policies. I told him that I would lose my job because of this misinformation and be fired for an attendance violation and he said there was nothing he could do. I pressed and said, "But it's my JOB." And he asked me, "What does your husband do?" I think my jaw nearly hit the floor. Not only was it presumptuous to assume both me and my spouse were working but I was insulted too. My husband had been in search of work for the past year and hadn't found any leads. I explained this to Doctor Winter and it was painful to do so. I then asked about the paperwork and he said he didn't think I would even qualify for FMLA. I told him that in the state of MI pregnancy is a temporary disability and he said he'd fill it out and see but he said he couldn't excuse the time I had taken off because he hadn't seen me prior for those issues. I argued they were the same issues he was seeing me for that day and he said they weren't pregnancy related and I'd have to start over with a new claim and submit to my neurologist (I am epileptic and I have lumbar arthritis both of which are affected by the pregnancy). A couple of weeks later I received my FMLA decision in the mail and sure enough, my leave was granted only from the day I saw him on. So I lost my job. As if that wasn't insult to injury enough, I had to fall back to my secondary income (self-employment) as primary and it wasn't nearly as much as I made at my old job. As if I wasn't tired enough from the pregnancy I had to work three times harder to make much less. Then since I knew I'd be diabetic again with this pregnancy, I had to keep pushing off my appointment with diabetic ed because I did not have the gas money to get there to and from. I asked about gas mileage reimbursement and Borgess said they did not offer any. Today I spoke with nurse Kim after finally making it to my appointment yesterday with the dietician, and she said she would call me back right away regarding an insurance issue and the script for my insulin. All day I waited for a call back. Finally I called the pharmacy and they said a script had not been sent in. So I called Borgess back and got a different nurse. She called over to Kim to see if she wanted to speak to me about my issue and her reply was a callous and flat, "About what?" Which naturally offended me that had forgotten after I had told her my fasting blood sugar this morning was a whopping 268. Then when she finally got on the phone with me, I asked her what was going on and she said she was waiting for the doctor to approve the script because he was tending to patients all day. I told her it only takes like five minutes to submit electronically to the pharmacy and I didn't understand why I couldn't just get a dosage so I could at least use my daughter's insulin today until I could get mine tomorrow (my daughter is type one diabetic) and the insulin they wanted me on were the same ones she used. The nurse said she "wasn't at liberty" to give me a dosage but that whatever the dietician recommended Doctor Winter had to approve. I told her I was concerned about waiting longer and the effects it would have on my baby, and Kim told me callously that "Well, two hours won't really make a difference after all this time" (referring to the fact that it took me so long to be seen with the dietician which really irritated me given what I had already gone through with them and the financial damage they had done to me). So I waited until 4:45pm and called again to see what the status was. The operator at the front desk said to please wait on hold so she could check to see what was going on. I waited for 29 minutes and finally gave up, assuming they had left me on home and went home because my call had ran past 5pm. So I called the pharmacy and double-checked on the script and they naturally said the insulin wasn't in yet. I am ready to cry. This is so unprofessional. Three years ago I would have said Borgess Women's Health was the best place for pregnancy and delivery because I had my son there but now I am so unbelievably angry I am ready to snap. Borgess doesn't care about their patients at all. read more