I Tell Christ Health CEO Dr. Robert Record MD: Clinic Hung Up Phone When I Called For MRI Referral

Part 7

In a May 17, 2023 phone call I told Christ Health CEO Dr. Robert Record MD about my 2019 visit with their Nurse Practitioner Anna Musgraves. There I was curiously given paperwork to pursue 3 financial assistance avenues for a urgently needed MRI of my neck and head (SEE IMAGES). I immediately applied for these (Ascension Saint Vincent's Access To Care / UAB Hospital / Cooper Green Hospital) only to find out I did not qualify. Musgraves told me to call her at the Woodlawn clinic to get the MRI referral once I had secured it.

2 days later I found American Health Imaging in Birmingham who agreed to do the MRI for $500 cash and a referral. After paying I had AHI call Christ Health Woodlawn where the receptionist was placed on hold 15 minutes before someone at Christ Health hung up the phone. I did not get the promised referral. AHI agreed to do the MRI without the referral. Radiologist Angus Baird MD (of Birmingham Radiological Group) did not acknowledge the several inch diameter injury between my skull and cervical column of my neck that appeared in the exact area where I complained of pain but it can be clearly seen (surrounded by infection) in those MRI images (and correlates to broken bone in the underside of my skulll that can be seen in a CT scan of my head and neck from an Ascension ER visit weeks earlier).

Dr. Record's response was less than adequate in my opinion. I spent several days chasing my tail, tangled up in Christ Health Center's web of denials and service offerings that led nowhere while I was carrying an injury that I almost died from.

It took a 12 phone call round of phone tag (not productive) before I spoke to Christ Health CEO Dr. Robert Record M.D. about negligence, service and misdiagnosis issues that arose in a 2019 visit to 2 of their clinics. My original call was not returned until 1 week later. We finally connected after I left a voicemail message asking that he leave a time and date to expect his call. Christ Health's automated phone system does not provide an intuitive way to reach their corporate office directly (there is also no phone directory).

Regarding visits I had at community health clinic The Christ Health Center (Birmingham, Alabama). I was referred here by Saint Vincent's East Hospital (Ascension) after a 2018 X-Ray (the injury was overlooked by reading radiologist Dr. Julian Patrick Druhan MD (also a member of Birmingham Radiological Group)) I had done was said to be "normal". Doctors Terry Daniel Smith ("T. Daniel Smith") did the encounter with me in May, 2019. Attempts to obtain a referral for an MRI to reveal the injury (I needed one that day, immediately) were not facilitated and he wanted to go a different route with the treatment. I feel I was not treated as a human being, my opinions were ignored, he levied an ultimatum, and so I walked out. I was charged for medical procedures not performed on me (see records and bills).