My Ballad Health ‘Horror Story’
This incident happened several years ago when my mother had a hip replacement surgery at Bristol Regional Hospital performed by an excellent doctor. The surgery went smoothly, and I was present with my mom during her pre-op exam. Together, we decided she would do her rehab at Norton Community Hospital, which at the time was an independent hospital, not yet part of Ballad Health. Other family members had previously undergone rehab there and had positive experiences with excellent results.
Unfortunately, I was out of town working on the day of her surgery. While I was away, a representative from Ballad Health approached my parents and convinced them to change her rehab facility from Norton Community Hospital to Mountain View Hospital, claiming it had undergone millions of dollars in renovations and was now a first-class facility. Regrettably, my mother agreed to the change.
Although the surgery itself went well, I received a distressing phone call from my mom almost 36 hours later. She was crying and told me that while she had been transferred from Bristol to Mountain View Hospital, they had lost her medical records. Because of this, they couldn’t administer any of her prescribed medications, including pain relief. To make matters worse, they hadn’t started any physical therapy on her hip.
When I called Mountain View Hospital to address the situation, I was met with the runaround. Frustrated, I demanded that she be transferred to Norton Community Hospital immediately. They later called back to inform me that my request was denied, claiming that Norton’s rehab facility was full and had no available beds. This seemed odd since we had originally booked her rehab there just a few days prior.
Determined, I called Norton Community Hospital directly. The director assured me they had plenty of beds and could easily accommodate my mother.
To make a long story short, I eventually had to escalate the issue to a Ballad Health Board member and even threatened to involve the Sheriff’s Office to ensure my mother was transferred to Norton. Once she arrived at Norton, they immediately took her back for physical therapy and had the medical director coordinate with her primary care doctor to retrieve her prescription records. They promptly started her on the necessary pain medications and therapy.