Anonymous User

My experience was completely different with two separate encounters within one appointment. Prior to my appointment, I called ahead in time and requested to get an in-person interpreter. When I showed up for my appointment, I was puzzled to not see the interpreter there. When I asked the receptionist about it, she brought out the VRI for me to use to communicate with. During our conversation with trying to get this resolved, she was unprofessional and rude with me. Even made threats about cancelling my appointment before I was even seen. It was completely terrible and shocking for their behavior.

I called the Interpreting Services Department to ask while standing there with the VRI interpreting what I was signing/saying and it turns out the Pain Clinic never sent an ASL request to them even if I had asked for one. I was confused at first because I had received a phone message about the interpreter confirmation. Turns out they probably got it mixed up with an appointment I had for that morning at a different location under the same provider (Swedish). The coordinator said she would talk with the Pain Clinic to explain that regardless of their clinic policy "prohibiting in-person interpreters", they still have to provide one upon request for accessibility reasons. I was very shook up with how I was treated by this receptionist. Completely unacceptable--especially with this being a pain clinic. You would think the person would have a little more compassionate and understanding, but nope. 

When I saw Dr. Xing, he was very professional, warm and friendly. Asked a lot of throughout questions to get a better understanding of what was going on with me. Gave me time to ask questions and explain about my health issues, which I really appreciated. The appointment took significantly longer with the VRI because there were a lot of delays, clarifications, tech issues, and so on. It was very challenging. The appointment would have probably been only 20-25 minutes with the doctor with an in-person interpreter compared to the 40+ minutes that it took with the VRI. I was very thankful that Dr. Xing was patient with me even with how long it took for our appointment because of the front desk incident and the VRI struggles. 

I followed up with the clinic manager about my experience with the front desk staff and I was informed that they would be talked to about how to handle it better the next time. I really do hope so because I don't think I've ever experienced a receptionist behave like that with me. I don't know if they were having a bad day or had negative experience with a previous Deaf patient, but what happened was not okay. I sincerely hope it doesn't happen again.