Mayo Abandons Its Patient's Care

[Unregistered]

Everyone needs to know that the Mayo Clinic abandons patient care. It abandoned my care. I was told by a Minneapolis medical malpractice attorney "you're not the first to be abandoned by Mayo." Even the supervisor of Mayo Clinic's Office of Patient Affairs said to me it abandons (although the word used was "terminate") care of its patients. To decent physicians patient abandonment is unethical, unprofessional, and unbelievable.

My care was abandoned the day before I was to begin radiation for my breast cancer. Mayo performed the mastectomy and had given me eight rounds of chemo while expanding my breast tissue expander. Then, the day before I was to begin radiation the Office of Patient Affairs called, and said "don't come, we will not provide you with medical care." I was stunned. I was told I was "unhappy" with the care I was receiving. Yes, I was unhappy and thought someone at this suppossedly quality institution could help me. When I received the certified letter a few days later, it read I was "antagonistic" toward staff.

Antagonisitic? Well, I certainly questioned my plastic surgeon, his colleagues and staff about why my breast had become so distorted, and more importantly, how he was going to be fix my breast. I wouldn't accept explanations like "everything went well" or "things are normal" or "this is what sometimes happens." OK, so my breast looks terrible right now, but how will you fix it? No one could explain to me what would be done because, as I strongly believe, no one knew what to do, or didn't want to get involved. So get rid of the patient instead.

Please be careful finding quality medical care.

[Dordhs]

I dont know how medicaid billing works, but this thing seems real strange to me. If ones insurancemedicaid didnt cover the entire amount of the care, then why dont they ask the patient to pay the rest?? I cant believe they just take what medicaid is offering, and let the patient off the hook for the rest.

I also cant believe they would cut all medicaid patients? They CERTAINLY cant all afford to pay cash, like they want them to, and how is losing all your customers going to help you fiscally?

Maybe someone can make some sense of this for me please?

[Unregistered]

Mayo Clinic prefers to deal with wealthy patients who have better health coverage and can afford to support them with million dollar donations. Of course, they say they're not for profit but they shun patients with HMOs and patients who have Medicaid as primary insurance.

They prefer not to deal with Medicare patients either. Dr. George Bartley, former Jacksonville CEO, admitted that in an employee town hall meeting when I worked there a few years ago. They even took steps to avoid Medicare patients by shutting down satellite clinics in areas where Medicare patients were heavily populated.

Since I left, they even abandoned the HMO plans that they offered their employees. They switched employees to some high-priced PPO that requires employees to rely almost solely on Mayo Clinic for their health care needs. Basically Mayo Clinic is saying to their employees, "give us back your paychecks."

[Unregistered]

I was researching info on the Mayo clinic due to my own experience there. I too had my care abandoned. However, I have great health insurance and can afford to pay my bills. The doctors told me during my initial appointment that they would be able to work on the two conditions I requested treatment for. After they addressed the first, I called their office and they said that they would be sending me a letter in the mail advising me of what to do next. Thinking that I would receive information about continued testing, I was quite dismayed to receive a letter stating to follow up with my primary care doctor in six months if my conditions worsened. If my condition worsened, I'd be dead. Therefore, I am writing this, because yes, you can expect to be dropped regardless of the type of insurance you have. When addressing Mayo Clinic about it, they were not in the least bit concerned. Therefore, I had to search for treatment elsewhere, and start all over again.

Just thought I'd share, in case anyone else has issues with their facility - you are not alone!