Psychiatrist Warnings: The Controller

This one was both highly upsetting but with a hilarious ending. Keep reading until the end to read the fun twist!

Dr. Katherine Brandon from Compass Health Systems did have the intelligence and understanding that we were looking for but was rude and controlling. The goal of the doctor is the find the best care for their patient. However, sometimes their 'know-it-all' attitude gets too aggressive and ends up doing more damage.

This was another medical professional that wasn't always happy to have me in their sessions. My friend was looking for some meds to help him sleep and abate his nightmares. For some reason, many medical professionals like to jump on the opportunity of 'teaching' about depression and anxiety but he just wanted to sleep. It's not like depression and anxiety were new in his life. He just needed sleep to be able to deal with them again. Coupling with meeting this psychiatrist, he was meeting with a really great therapist. They had hit it off and it was promising with their therapy sessions at the same location.

We went specifically to Dr. Katherine because she knew how to read the genesight test to help him avoid taking meds that would be really bad for his health. After I had been kind of used as a 'guinea pig' on various prescriptions, I didn't want him to go through that. She was able to read them and we were excited he may be able to get rest soon.

(Side note: I think my genesight test may be covered by Medicaid. Otherwise we paid out of pocket and it was about $150 when he took it? Prices may have changed but look into it!)

Skip to his last session. My friend wanted me in his next session with him. You know how you get so exhausted that you just don't have energy to be upset or angry anymore? That was him. After almost two weeks of not sleeping. So that's why I stepped in to make sure we discussed what he wanted to be covered in his appointment. In comes the doctor, with an intern in tow. He was fine with it as they were only supposed to go over meds and no trauma information. My friend was also trying to ask if he could get a doctor's note for work to help limit his hours. Though he was hired to work part-time, they were pushing him almost to full-time but also keeping any benefits he may have gotten for working full-time. They kept a skeleton crew and overworked their staff to save money. It was overly stressful and greatly impacting his sleep.

Keep in mind, when trying new medications you want to have some time of caution to see how the medication works on you. I had noticed that if the side effects are going to be bad, they usually pop up within the first week or two. Otherwise you still want to take it easy and keep track of how the meds are affecting your body. The medication the doctor decided to prescribe was one that I had been on only 6 months prior. And having been to various psychiatrists before, it was always common practice to rest and see how it affects you. With my friend working so much, that would be impossible. He wanted to at least limit his work hours to part time (back to the range he got hired for), just for a few weeks.

This is what shocked us:

She started yelling at me. Telling me that I'm not her patient and that he is. I couldn't look away being so shocked and I could only imagine what the intern was thinking during this explosion. Luckily I had my wits about me this time to argue back. I pushed that that was the whole point of us being there. If she really cared she would see that he is struggling to get rest. Ignoring that, meant she put her pride before her patient. I didn't like that I had to step in. Only because that put us on bad terms and we would most likely not be back and not be seeing that great therapist my friend finally had built a trusting rapport with.

She couldn't really argue and stated that the note would be ready in an hour and we could pick it up later. We were always confused why these letters took so long. You only needed to type 2-3 sentences and then print. On top of that it cost $25 PER letter! But we had errands to do anyway so we headed out expecting to be back soon. After dealing with that doctor, we decided we didn't want to deal with her again. We paid for the letter we would pick up later and left.

On our way back we got a call from the front desk saying that because we weren't rescheduling with Dr. Katherine Brandon, that they weren't going to give us that letter. Even though we had already discussed with the doctor, she agreed to write it, and we paid for it. We rushed back to see what could be done.

My friend had to tell me the next part as I was livid and knew I would make situations worse. I didn't go in but he had a plan on how to handle this situation. He told them that there must've been a mistake and we were just planning on scheduling later. But for them, since there was nothing in the books they wouldn't take it. So he scheduled an appointment two weeks out, even going as far as to pretend some days were full and busy while others weren't (I was holding the calendar so he couldn't have known). Once that was scheduled, they handed them the note. He promptly told them to cancel the appointment and flipped them off.

That's the part where I saw what happened. The door opened and him walking out flipping them off. I was laughing so hard when he told me what was going on and we headed off to his job to drop off the letter before the next week of scheduling needed to be done.

On our drive down apparently they had called his workplace. He walked in and talked to his boss, handing in his note from the doctor. His boss is who told him that the front desk of Katherine Brandon was pissed and tried to discredit the doctor's note saying it wasn't valid. Luckily, the boss saw the note, saw it was real and had heard that we even had to pay for the doctor's note at that doctor's appointment just an hour before. He had no reason to deny the letter and took it.

But can you believe the audacity of trying to get back at a client because they didn't follow exactly what the psychiatrist wanted?

We are upset that because of her behavior we lost a great therapist. The tension was too high between us and Katherine Brandon, as well as the ladies at the front desk. There was no chance of us staying there. We hope that these stories help you keep in mind what you could expect from these medical "professionals". Keep a lookout for our next story. There are still a few more to cover!