Joiner, Dr. Murray E

I saw him twice, He was not any help and the prices are outrages. He did not help me with my pain.

After receiving the first round of injections my mother was directed to keep a journal of her pain and any relief she experienced. After 1 week of having very little relief with increasing pain in another area of her back she contacted the office to request to speak with the doctor regarding this change in her pain, questioned if the injections were effective and asked if obtaining an MRI would help with the diagnosis (she was also trying to receive steroid injections for her hip and knee due to arthritis, but could not get them all at the same time and was in a great deal of pain). She was told that she would be reassessed at her next appointment. My mother asked if I could accompany her to her next appointment because she sometimes becomes overwhelmed with information, forgets to tell about her symptoms, doesn't often ask clarifying questions, and has forgotten or mixed up her follow up care instructions from doctors before. She was told this was prohibited by office policy. She was obviously upset by this. She then requested to have her records sent to other providers to obtain a second opinion. Over the course of a week and a half we left several messages that went unanswered and made multiple phone calls to the office without any action or assistance from the staff. After becoming angry and frustrated I spoke with the office manager who took the time to explain the reason behind the office policy and advised that I would be allowed to be present during a portion of my mother's appointment. She was also able to get the medical records sent for a second opinion. It was appalling that we had to go through so much and receive so much resistance from the office staff in order to fulfill two simple, common requests. The day before her second appointment the office contacted her to confirm. She asked to clarify that she would be able to speak with the doctor about her concerns before making the decision to continue with the injections (she had been keeping her journal and was worried about the lack of relief and increasing pain). She was told at that time that no, she would not be able to talk with the doctor at that appointment, that it was not an assessment but for injections only. Frustrated and confused, my mother cancelled the appointment. Again I contacted the office manager to complain. The office manager later called back to clarify that my mother would have been able to talk with the doctor about her concerns. Again I was really frustrated and confused as to why the front desk staff needed the intervention of the office manager to respond to such simple matters. During all of this my mother had also asked Dr. Joiner to write a brief letter to document her diagnosis and treatment for back pain so that she could submit it to an airline (she had to cancel a flight due to pain and in order to avoid fees she needed this documentation). Dr. Joiner refused to provide her with the letter stating that he had only seen her once and she was previously treated for the issue by her ortho. When I attempted to correct this by explaining that she had two appointments, one for assessment and one for treatment, and that she was referred to Dr. Joiner by her ortho because he didn't treat back pain I was told "he said no." I again tried to ask for an explanation as to why a doctor would not be willing to simply provide this for a patient and again was told "he said no" and "if you have a problem with the way he runs his office you can speak with the office manager but I can tell you she is going to tell you the same thing."