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Posted 10/9/2015 5:33 PM (GMT 0)
Prat,

I rushed to read this thread this AM - what a relief!

I disagree with those who said "no harm done." Anxiety is harm. Especially so for some of us who have CV problems.

Aside to the benefits to other patients, I also think it benefits the lab when you file a complaint. Something may be wrong with their procedures that can be fixed. If it were my lab, I'd want to know, in order to make my lab better and reduce my error rate.

BTW - you can always send me an email if you need to be talked down from the ledge - I don't always check new posts in the evening, but I do check emails.

- Allen
Posted 10/9/2015 6:06 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Prat,
Great news on the re-test. I agree there may be some benefit to filing a complaint. Quest should be able to investigate, identify the cause of the error, and then address an improvement. So besides your personal relief and possibly helping Quest improve, there's two other undesired minor plusses here. You've involuntarily stress-tested your coronary system and it passed, and LabCorp customers feel better.
Here's to future all correct 0.0's for you!
Jim
Posted 10/9/2015 6:21 PM (GMT 0)
Holy crap Batman, I miss hitting HW for two days and this 4-page thread shows up! Sorry I missed this yesterday Prato, but of course I would have been and am in the camp of that not being a real result. I'm also in the camp that doesn't believe this comes up to a litigation suit - but I would absolutely ream them a new one and ask for a response from the top. At the end of it all I'm sure happy for how the REAL results came out! I'll take a few Bud Lights bro!
Posted 10/9/2015 8:16 PM (GMT 0)

Pratoman said...
... The last thing in the world i want to do is cause someone to be fired. But if what happened to me is part of a pattern, than thats what should happen. If its not part of a pattern, then it will be a teaching moment for that person

Agree.

Am uncertain about the particular Lab, but many if not most labs are accredited today.

Depending on what path you want to take, if Quest does not give you a suitable response, you could file a complaint with the accrediting body (the lab will hate that, the labs response will be suitable but someone there will not look good internally.)

Also, the particular facility will operate under the auspices of some medical board of NY, have a license to operate and you can file a complaint with any and all regulators.

Or threaten these actions. Quest will eventually wriggle out of these things and have suitable responses. However, if the particular facility has a history of problems and management is marginal then written complaints to regulators may turn the tide to bring needed change about.

Written complaints to accrediting bodies, and licensing boards, medical board usually require a written response from the lab/hospital, and can result in inspections or investigations. I would expect Quest to make you happy with their response to you if they realize that an unhappy Pratoman will result in these actions

Actually, threatening to file written complaints to the hospital accreditation, state medical board and registered letter to Corporate headquarters is how I got the hospital/Dr to get off their ass and issue a death certificate for my mother-in-laws death that was well overdue. They produced it by close of business same day.

ETA - in all honesty, some people should not be working in a lab and should be in another field. I would not feel bad about helping bring that about if that is the case.

Post Edited (Ken) : 10/9/2015 2:22:47 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 10/9/2015 8:36 PM (GMT 0)
At least they reported the result to 2 digits after the decimal. smilewinkgrin

Jeff
Posted 10/9/2015 8:44 PM (GMT 0)
Here's another way to look at the sanity check: Anybody approving a lab report should have the information available (and use it) to verify that a particular reading is within normal range for the individual being tested. Someone should have caught this at the lab, before the report was released. This is the downside of online reports available immediately to the patient. In the ugly old days, the prescribing physician would have seen the report and raised a flag with the lab before Prato was ever notified. These days, the QC person at the lab should have seen the result, cross checked it and found out that Prato was a PC patient without a prostate with previous zeros and said, whoa, is this possible?

Someone here dropped the ball. They've totally lost credibility. And, they need to know it. And they will fix it. Somehow the chain of custody got screwed up, and they need to find out how. I run lab tests every day, and I sure has heck know what 'normal' is for the things I run all the time. And I know immediately when something is wrong. And yes, it is usually human error.
Posted 10/9/2015 9:10 PM (GMT 0)

Pratoman said...
Retest 0.00
Thank you God
And thank all if you guys for giving a lot if support to me, the resident lunatic.
I'm totally drained

I can't wait to contacr the CEO AND HEAD IF QUALITY control at Quest and ask fur an official response

Well I was late seeing this, so I read through to see what the new results were. But I had started to reply: no freaking way, totally bogus. The lab tech was drunk or hungover or something. I have not heard of a PC cancer(so far) that in just a few months time could jump from ~ zero to almost as much as when you had a rising PSA which included your entire dang prostate.

You would think whoever signs off on a report would look a previous reports and make dang sure it was correct when there was a jump of mega-magnitude. You would think even their computers would be set to flag a reading like that for a recheck.
Posted 10/9/2015 9:56 PM (GMT 0)
It may well have been better if you had testing done through your Uro's office...he would certainly have flagged it as at the very least unusual. If you guys weren't so hell bent on getting your results within 12 hrs you could avoid this sort of thing.
Posted 10/9/2015 10:03 PM (GMT 0)
JThere are so many responses that I don't no where to start so again I'll just say thank you again everyone. And once again it seems like i started a thread that just keeps on giving. yeah

Allen, you are a gem, thank you very much, next time I'll email u.
Yoop, thanks man, your the best. I know you aren't on here every day .

I have no interest in litigating, I just want to fix this. I contacted Quest today. I have the names of the CEO, CFO, Chief Medical,Officer and VP of Compliance. I asked for the names of the head of the facility that ran the test, and the director of Quality Control, but they said they don't give out that info. They offered to put me in touch with someone in Patient Advocacy, which they say is where all complaints are handled. So I talked to that person and told her my story.
I told her I'm not angry, I'm not vengeful, I just want this to never happen to someone else. And that I want to know in writing, what happened, what is broken in their process that allowed it to happen, and what they are going to commit to doing, in order to getting it fixed. I told her that I am not the only one getting bad results, (guys here), and I don't know how I could evervtrustvthem again.

she responded by saying that someone is going to look into this and figure out wpexactly what went wrong, and call me within the next few days to a week.
I got her name, and nicely told her that I'd be happy to talk to whomever calls me, but I am going to want something in writing as well, and if I'm not satisfied I'm going to write to the CEO, CFO, CMO, and the FDA.
She understood that I'm serious about this. So we'll see what happens, I hope I can turn lemons into lemonade for all the guys that get tested at Quest.

BTW the facility that the samples are sent to and tested at is Teterboro NJ, which I believe serves most of the trim state NYC area

Post Edited (Pratoman) : 10/9/2015 4:08:07 PM (GMT-6)

Posted 10/9/2015 10:54 PM (GMT 0)
Wow.

Wonderful to read your update.

We have been on the road and just got home. Could not wait to see how this turned out. PHEW!!!!
Yeah, you can say NO WAY, but this was a SCARY event.

Mel
Posted 10/9/2015 11:25 PM (GMT 0)
Prat: Great news and I am glad you thanked God. Remember, he said, "vengeance is mine".
Posted 10/10/2015 1:26 AM (GMT 0)
what a stressful experience but worse stuff happens like amputating the wrong foot. for me, i'm better off letting things go as quickly as possible which is not always possible unfortunately.

I would also lodge a complaint. in retrospect it was an obvious error.

you probably got someone else's results. glad you're not him.

ed
Posted 10/10/2015 1:43 AM (GMT 0)
I wasn't on HW the past day or so but saw your post on GFMPH FB, which I reached out to you on. Great news, glad you found out quickly.

Something is going on at Quest and it ain't pretty!

My PCP, who draws my blood for my PSA test, had always said my PSA results were great, even when they went to 0.1 after having 2 years of <0.1. Well, we all know that that is not great. Little did I know that they changed to 0.1 was the lowest they checked. After having a PSA test at the hospital I had my surgery at this past July, and it came back at 0.06, I am done with Quest. You would think they would tell patents they are changing their parameters. Instead I had 16 months of anxiety, thinking recurrence had started. Lucky for me I didn't schedule SRT based on my results.

At least you only had 1 day of anxiety.

Bill from Florida cool
Posted 10/10/2015 4:13 AM (GMT 0)
Yea!
Posted 10/10/2015 1:25 PM (GMT 0)
Great news! On the complaint thing, file it and then file it... Life is too short and everyday is too precious to get wrapped up in noise like that.

Go have a great weekend and bask in the 0, its a great day!
Posted 10/10/2015 2:28 PM (GMT 0)

Pratoman said...
....... So I talked to that person and told her my story.
I told her I'm not angry, I'm not vengeful, I just want this to never happen to someone else. And that I want to know in writing, what happened, what is broken in their process that allowed it to happen, and what they are going to commit to doing, in order to getting it fixed. ...

That's a great approach - not angry, spiteful, out of control but a reasoned approach to solving a problem and understanding went wrong.
Posted 10/10/2015 2:29 PM (GMT 0)

F8 said...
what a stressful experience but worse stuff happens like amputating the wrong foot. for me, i'm better off letting things go as quickly as possible which is not always possible unfortunately.

I would also lodge a complaint. in retrospect it was an obvious error.

you probably got someone else's results. glad you're not him.

ed




And this is a big reason I'm not going to let this go so quickly. . Mistakes like this affect treatment. There might be a guy out there with a PSA of 3.8, that got a <.02 result from the lab.
Posted 10/10/2015 2:31 PM (GMT 0)
Bill I saw your post in the GFMPH FB page, thank you.
Posted 10/10/2015 3:26 PM (GMT 0)
Glad to see you got confirmation that the test was wrong. I once had one jump from .04 to .4 and had an immediate re-test. The re-test came back at <.1 after an anxious couple of days.
Posted 10/10/2015 4:28 PM (GMT 0)
Mistakes of this magnitude have got to be rare...and even if they are not the doctor and/or patient should be aware that it is an obvious error and should not be met with panic for heaven's sake. Even if it was accurate, you are not going to die in 2 days. I know this forum exists basically for support no matter what, but jeez, guys..you are killing yourselves with stress.
Posted 10/10/2015 6:38 PM (GMT 0)
However...upon further review...what if the samples loaded into the machine were off by one...so that all 50 or perhaps more were off by one? Not an error in sample processing but simply getting them loaded off by one...I seen that happen in our labs a Cornell more than once..but in this particular work we could see what had happened,knowing what to expect. Maybe they had better check the whole printout for that run and maybe at P's prodding they are more likely to do so.
Posted 10/10/2015 7:25 PM (GMT 0)
sg: exactly the type of error that could easily happen. Or maybe something weird like a glitch in the barcode scanners. It wouldn't be unheard of. As a QC guy, I suppose my first question would be, "what is the simplest human error that could have led to this?" I have to wonder, just how many hands, forms, signatures, bar code readings, etc are between the phlebotomist and the machine printout? All it takes is for ONE of them to make a minor error.
Posted 10/10/2015 7:54 PM (GMT 0)
Congrats on the zero! I knew your first reading had to be an error. What a relief!

This is an example of why no unexpected test result should be acted upon without verification by at least one more test.
Posted 10/10/2015 11:42 PM (GMT 0)
What a terrifying roller-coaster ride for you. I'm so glad it was "just" a giant screwup.

Sal
Posted 10/11/2015 3:57 PM (GMT 0)
You owe me the money I was betting on you with.....LOL

Dx @ 42 PSA 2.76 GS6
open RP 10/08
pT2 Organ Confined GS6
7 Year PSA <0.03

Post Edited (ChrisR) : 10/11/2015 10:04:10 AM (GMT-6)

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