Los Angeles LGBT Center
Community Service/Non-Profit
1625 Schrader Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028
The LGBT Center is exploding with bureaucracy. They seem to hire people just to further cloud up the gray-areas between departments. If I can give one helpful tip, it is to know your doctor’s email address. It will be the letter of their first name followed by their last name @lalgbtcenter.org. It will save you from A LOT of bureaucratic nonsense from reception.
I once had to get a signature from my doctor who knew I was coming back from the prior day. I went to reception who said it was impossible to get since I didn’t have an appointment and they can’t accept documents or put them into the doctor’s mailbox. But “I can set you up with a social worker next Tuesday.” WTF. I went online to find out what my doctor’s email address was and they got back to me within ten minutes. I had to go around reception and hand it off.
If you don’t email but need to get in contact without an appointment, good luck. You’ve got to deal with a reception staff who will be as helpful as bouncers at a busy Hollywood nightclub. It seems that the LGBT Center management encourages them to practice a kind of TSA-style fascism and treat everyone as if they’re broke junkies who change home addresses by the night and are looking for free drugs from the benevolent LGBT Center. If you can’t wait for a doctor’s appointment in two months, you can get an appointment with a social worker in one week! Yay. The line is slow because they are required to ask for your full address, name, and date of birth every time you see one of them. Every appointment takes a month to few months to get. If you have an appointment that requires a follow-up, you will be asked the same questions before and after that appointment.
Just last week I was here trying to check in at 9am. I had to wait for the receptionist to finish with a patient’s long request to check me in. About ten minutes into it, the transwoman who sits all the way to the left comes in. She stands up from her desk and looks at me, so I walk over.
Transwoman: OH MY GOD I DID NOT CALL YOU. I AM NOT OPEN YET!
(Another five minutes later. Line literally grew from just me to 20 people while she just sat there.)
Dude with a desk: (Opens door and walks out of adjacent office.) Follow me.
Me: Hi, I just want to check in.
Dude with a desk: SIT DOWN. What is your address?
Me: 5217 Hollywood Blvd. I just want to check in.
Dude with a desk: (Ignores request.) What is your last name? Is this your first time here?
My sister worked as a receptionist for a medical center and once told me that reception marks your chart indicating if the patient is a troublemaker. I probably have a ton of marks on my damn chart because I have the misfortune of having trouble on every floor with TSA-like reception and staff. I can’t help it. I mentioned Floor 3’s reception. Ground Level – A pharmacy receptionist, an older hispanic woman, just in this past week rejected my signature because my signature “looks too much like a line” after the credit card machine prompted me if I want any help. No. Just in case if I changed my mind, she yells, “PHARMACIST!” “Hi, do you have any questions?” No. Floor 4 – A year ago, a receptionist flipped out because I knocked on the window after she looked at me waiting to check in, only to physically turn around to finish her conversation about what she was going to have for lunch with her coworker.
My partner’s appointment was cancelled because the LGBT Center had a power failure in their building and he was scheduled for a financial screening. While management sits with their hands on their butt, reception staff have no other protocol than to act as if it was his fault and he cancelled that appointment. Reception told him that his only option was to come in the morning and be on call, otherwise rescheduling will take months.
The departments don’t have access to each others’ files so you have to fill out all your info separately for each department. Rather than centralizing information, like with iPads, everything runs through 1990s Filemaker-like programs. Each department has their own server and only have access to their own set of files. Nobody from any department has any idea what the other department is up to so they yoyo you back to reception. If you need a job, management loves hiring new people to take care of what they don’t know. This place is too big for its own good and it would run way more efficiently with self check-in iPads and a centralized database.
All in all:
- RECEPTION SUCKS HERE! LGBT Center needs an easier way for people checking in, scheduling appointments and updating personal info. Once again get iPads instead of more staff and create a centralized database. Concentrate on those who need help getting in contact with their doctors instead of interrogating everyone before they check in.
- Need departments to communicate with each other.
- Need to take responsibility for canceling appointments.
- Fucking transparency and less bureaucracy.
Useful: 12 Funny: 4 Cool: 3
4/21/2016