Had yearly appointment to get prescriptions renewed today. I got to Dr's office, checked in and sat down to wait. A few minutes later the nurse came out and called my name. I started to get up but an older lady across the room from me also got up and said “that’s me”. She had barely arrived and hadn't even got her coat off. I tried to get the attention of the nurse and tell her that she had the wrong person but she didn't see me and closed the door. I sat back down and thought “ I’ll just wait and see how long it takes them to discover their mistake”. I waited a few minutes and then got up and walked over and picked up the lone remaining chart on the top of the counter waiting for the Dr. The 6 year old receptionist looked up and said “You can’t look at that, it’s confidential”. I was looking at the chart name by now, to point out that the previous patient and I had the same first name but not last and they might want to rethink using both names when they usher patients in to see the Dr. The first thing I noticed on the chart was that they had misspelled my name and started to tell them that the spelling was wrong but pronounced the same when the 6 year old receptionist whispered to me “we know, we took the wrong patient back and we’re trying to correct it now. “ It was about this time that I began to process that my chart was back in the room with the lady with the “same” name as me and I was holding her chart------except her middle name and last name were the same as mine. Her middle name was spelled exactly the same as mine which is an unusual spelling for a short middle name. I’ve known for many years that there was someone in this small town with the same first and last name as me but had no idea about the middle name. That we would turn up at the same Dr’s office, on the same day, with the same appointment time is weird.
