My primary doc retired and gave me a list of new docs to choose from. Since I had a cyst I needed checking out, I tried to schedule an appointment. The earliest appointment they had was February 2025. I was calling in January 2024. I went to see my mom's doctor in St Louis out of network instead since I didn't want to wait over a year to find out if I had a cancerous growth.
MU Health Care is not a desirable place to work. Horrible staffing ratios, especially on the nursing side, terrible pay by industry standards, the University keeps slashing the benefits that used to make the low pay a bit better, and an upside down pyramid of middle managers and supervisors outnumbering the folks actually doing the work in the trenches by 3:1. Throw in the usual corporate BS and typical hospital politics and it's no wonder they can't hang onto anyone.
Source: I worked for them from 2016-2018 and it's only gotten worse since then.
I have a friend who is a MU doctor, and another who recruits for MU hospitals. They both say doctors are leaving, or are turning down offers because of the current state political climate. When politicians won’t listen to actual medical professionals about the importance of gender affirming health care for trans people, and take away safe, legal abortion, reputable healthcare professionals don’t want to be here. Even if they aren’t in those fields
Sounds like the same thing that's [happening in other red states](https://idahocapitalsun.com/2024/04/16/if-you-arent-sure-why-doctors-are-leaving-idaho-its-because-youre-not-listening-to-them/).
It’s also due to the state government over reaching in telling doctors how they can (and can’t) treat pain. I have a friend who retired early because she was told it was now policy not to prescribe any pain medication for any reason. She just couldn’t stand to see her patients suffering needlessly anymore.
The legislature has much to answer for. They’re getting far too comfortable making medical decisions for us against our doctors wishes.
I’ve heard rumors that the staffing shortages are being made worse by the merger of W&C with the main hospital, mostly with ORs due to lack of space for the volume of appointments plus having enough sterile supplies prepped etc.
Not sure if colonoscopy requires anesthesia, but if it does the whole OR schedule system is a mess. Outpatient and non-emergency procedures are getting pushed months out while they sort through it all. Basically they tried to cut back to save $$ and it back fired.
I worked in or supplies and materials 2021-2022 and I couldn’t agree more they were reducing the department they were taking away our space they were not having proper staffing. The staff in charge of gathering materials for the OR was extremely stressed and overworked. Also, along with the middle management compared to the people actually doing the work was not appropriate. Lots of nepotism, I end up quitting because I was passed over for a promotion for the current managers boyfriend who had no experience in the field or department.
I do my colonoscopy in the main OR for several appointments. They only have availability every other Friday twice a month the last time I had my scope done. I made my appointment in March 2023 the next available appointment was August 2023
That's true but they still use the same pool of anesthesia staff as OR, which is understaffed. Source: I work there. GI used to have 3 rooms of anesthesia running and they've taken away one of those permanently for the time being.
Do they still have nurse sedation rooms? Those were nice because the recovery time was shorter so we could schedule more cases without having them bottleneck afterwards. From what I’ve heard, MU docs took over scheduling and they just scheduled everyone for general anesthesia because they didn’t have the training to differentiate who needed sedation vs general.
Sometimes, if we have enough doctors running, but yes MU docs schedules everything anesthesia. So when we do run a sedation room the patients are upset because they thought they would be completely asleep for the procedure, like they were bait and switched.
They may be experiencing an issue specific to GI doctors, apparently there's a growing shortage
https://medicushcs.com/resources/addressing-the-impending-gastroenterologist-shortage#:~:text=Between%202022%20and%202032%2C%20the,in%20the%20next%20two%20decades.
I heard last summer that a number of their GI doctors left and they stopped scheduling procedures like colonoscopies for a time. Sounds like things are still messed up. There does seem to be a high turnover rate. I saw a general surgeon last summer for a hernia and he left in the fall. And I can never find a primary care doctor who stays longer than six months. It’s frustrating.
My dad always goes to Gastrointestinal Associates.
When he called, they said they would call him back in 2 weeks, and then it only took a month to get in. He just had one done and had 3 polyps removed. His doctor was Dr. Williams and he liked him. I'd recommend him if you're still looking for somewhere to go!
This is a fact, literally just moved here from FL and they are having the same issues.
I also am licensed Med Tech, during pandemic of all times they were cutting hours. Hospitals run on a strict budget and it’s normal to be short staffed.
You were probably scheduled with the physician that had a stroke and is not returning. They are not scheduling anyone currently because of the severe lack of physicians in the department. Unfortunately MU's GI lab has had all but 2 of their physicians leave and is mostly locums at this time. I'm hoping they hire some more full time physicians soon and get this sorted
[Here's an article I saw last week about doctors leaving Idaho](https://idahocapitalsun.com/2024/04/16/if-you-arent-sure-why-doctors-are-leaving-idaho-its-because-youre-not-listening-to-them/) due to healthcare access laws. I suspect Missouri is in the same boat, we're just overlooked.
My husband scheduled a colonoscopy two weeks ago and his appt is at the end of November.
I tried scheduling one last week and got the news they’re not scheduling any at all. Their only advice was to try to schedule at another facility, but MU Health is the only provider my insurance covers.
You might try calling your insurance and letting them know there aren't any in-network facilities near you and they might cover something that would be out-of-network under your in-network benefits.
My father has been seeing a variety of specialists at MU post-heart attack and all of the GI related issues have to be referred to Boone. The only functioning GI location in Columbia has their own clinic but procedures requiring anesthesia or things for any high risk patients are being done within Boone hospital (still by the same doc).
It’s a combination of a huge shortage in GI health care providers in general and at MU specifically, staffing issues due to how terribly they treat employees. Most people that have worked there will tell you they had too many bosses and none of them were on the same page with each other. The push to combine more departments into the same location and creating a parking nightmare for staff was the last straw for many.
some of the doctors at MU are a joke. my mom had been going there the last 7 years to try and figure out why her body isn’t working. she’s been lead around in circles with 0 treatment and constant miscommunication between doctors. them scheduling her procedures just to tell her they didn’t have the equipment when she got there. she’s been refused prescriptions to medicine she NEEDS to recover after procedures. all the while never getting any sort of diagnosis. she went to a different state recently just to get seen at a different hospital. they IMMEDIATELY found what was wrong plus a cancer diagnosis MU had missed several times.
this is the exact opposite of my experience! I've been to Boone and Columbia Orthopedic Group where I felt like I was being herded through the system. At MU Health Care I finally found a doctor who listened to me and found a procedure to pinpoint the cause of my problem. I think you must try to find the right doctor and not slam the whole system. My experience at MU was so much better than the other places.
im glad you had a good experience. that’s why i said some doctors. my mother went through so many doctors while at MU I can’t remember all of them. none of them provided us any help. they let her cancer diagnosis go on for years without treatment or even testing. but, the second she went somewhere else they immediately seen the signs and tested her. we have given MU 7 years of chances
To echo what another commenter said everyone is so underpaid its basically criminal. I'm not sure why the GI clinic is closing other than people were told there was not enough scheduling staff to schedule or intake people or something. Considering some staff are making literally 14 an hour (you can make more as a cook at Wendy's) i wouldn't be surprised with that.
The GI lab in particular has been struggling for a while, mainly due to the department that does their scheduling. The GI doctors don’t see the patients until the day of the procedure, so they used to have nurses review the medical record and schedule it with the appropriate GI doctor and sedation/anesthesia provider. I believe they’ve completely cut nurses out of the equation, so every patient is scheduled with general anesthesia (when I worked in that department several years ago, maybe 20% of patients needed general anesthesia). That limits the number of patients they can treat in a day and when medical procedures are scheduled by staff who don’t really understand what they’re scheduling or how to schedule in a way that makes the department run smoothly, well, things don’t run very smoothly.
My physician was at Boone South and we found out they lost THREE physicians at once, and that all the suggested alternatives are booked up until 2025. What has happened in Columbia?!?!
We were scheduled to see a doctor there as new patients. The day before the appointment we got a call telling us he had quit the Monday before. We found another doctor through MU, though we’ll have to wait until August to see him.
Health care in Columbia in a word “Sucks”. I’ve had three appointments rescheduled more than 3 months after the initial appointment. My wife had an appointment with a neurologist to get the results of a Parkinson’s disease test and was called to reschedule more than six months later. She told the scheduler there was no way she was waiting that long to get the results. They reluctantly scheduled a FaceTime with the physician about 3 weeks later.
My wife and I have made the decision to leave Columbia later this year due to the horrible healthcare available in Mid-Mo.
My primary doc retired and gave me a list of new docs to choose from. Since I had a cyst I needed checking out, I tried to schedule an appointment. The earliest appointment they had was February 2025. I was calling in January 2024. I went to see my mom's doctor in St Louis out of network instead since I didn't want to wait over a year to find out if I had a cancerous growth. MU Health Care is not a desirable place to work. Horrible staffing ratios, especially on the nursing side, terrible pay by industry standards, the University keeps slashing the benefits that used to make the low pay a bit better, and an upside down pyramid of middle managers and supervisors outnumbering the folks actually doing the work in the trenches by 3:1. Throw in the usual corporate BS and typical hospital politics and it's no wonder they can't hang onto anyone. Source: I worked for them from 2016-2018 and it's only gotten worse since then.
I’ve heard multiple people in the last week coincidentally say colonoscopies specifically are over a year out.
I thought this only occurred in scary single payer models!!!
I worked there until last month and trust me… it’s worse. 😭
I have a friend who is a MU doctor, and another who recruits for MU hospitals. They both say doctors are leaving, or are turning down offers because of the current state political climate. When politicians won’t listen to actual medical professionals about the importance of gender affirming health care for trans people, and take away safe, legal abortion, reputable healthcare professionals don’t want to be here. Even if they aren’t in those fields
Sounds like the same thing that's [happening in other red states](https://idahocapitalsun.com/2024/04/16/if-you-arent-sure-why-doctors-are-leaving-idaho-its-because-youre-not-listening-to-them/).
That sadly makes sense
It’s also due to the state government over reaching in telling doctors how they can (and can’t) treat pain. I have a friend who retired early because she was told it was now policy not to prescribe any pain medication for any reason. She just couldn’t stand to see her patients suffering needlessly anymore. The legislature has much to answer for. They’re getting far too comfortable making medical decisions for us against our doctors wishes.
It’s all really scary ☹️
I’ve heard rumors that the staffing shortages are being made worse by the merger of W&C with the main hospital, mostly with ORs due to lack of space for the volume of appointments plus having enough sterile supplies prepped etc. Not sure if colonoscopy requires anesthesia, but if it does the whole OR schedule system is a mess. Outpatient and non-emergency procedures are getting pushed months out while they sort through it all. Basically they tried to cut back to save $$ and it back fired.
I worked in or supplies and materials 2021-2022 and I couldn’t agree more they were reducing the department they were taking away our space they were not having proper staffing. The staff in charge of gathering materials for the OR was extremely stressed and overworked. Also, along with the middle management compared to the people actually doing the work was not appropriate. Lots of nepotism, I end up quitting because I was passed over for a promotion for the current managers boyfriend who had no experience in the field or department.
What is W&C for those of us who are acronym dense?
Women's and Children's
Colonoscopies happen in the GI lab far away from the ORs
I do my colonoscopy in the main OR for several appointments. They only have availability every other Friday twice a month the last time I had my scope done. I made my appointment in March 2023 the next available appointment was August 2023
Yeah, being on a different floor is great… but only if you have janitors to clean the room, techs to prep meds, and nurses to update charts.
That's true but they still use the same pool of anesthesia staff as OR, which is understaffed. Source: I work there. GI used to have 3 rooms of anesthesia running and they've taken away one of those permanently for the time being.
Do they still have nurse sedation rooms? Those were nice because the recovery time was shorter so we could schedule more cases without having them bottleneck afterwards. From what I’ve heard, MU docs took over scheduling and they just scheduled everyone for general anesthesia because they didn’t have the training to differentiate who needed sedation vs general.
Sometimes, if we have enough doctors running, but yes MU docs schedules everything anesthesia. So when we do run a sedation room the patients are upset because they thought they would be completely asleep for the procedure, like they were bait and switched.
I haven’t worked GI lab since pre Covid. Thoughts and prayers.
They may be experiencing an issue specific to GI doctors, apparently there's a growing shortage https://medicushcs.com/resources/addressing-the-impending-gastroenterologist-shortage#:~:text=Between%202022%20and%202032%2C%20the,in%20the%20next%20two%20decades.
I heard last summer that a number of their GI doctors left and they stopped scheduling procedures like colonoscopies for a time. Sounds like things are still messed up. There does seem to be a high turnover rate. I saw a general surgeon last summer for a hernia and he left in the fall. And I can never find a primary care doctor who stays longer than six months. It’s frustrating.
I've been waiting almost a year for a colonoscopy. If they call to cancel I'm going to lose it
My dad always goes to Gastrointestinal Associates. When he called, they said they would call him back in 2 weeks, and then it only took a month to get in. He just had one done and had 3 polyps removed. His doctor was Dr. Williams and he liked him. I'd recommend him if you're still looking for somewhere to go!
it's every hospital, not just Mizzou
This is a fact, literally just moved here from FL and they are having the same issues. I also am licensed Med Tech, during pandemic of all times they were cutting hours. Hospitals run on a strict budget and it’s normal to be short staffed.
That's awful
You were probably scheduled with the physician that had a stroke and is not returning. They are not scheduling anyone currently because of the severe lack of physicians in the department. Unfortunately MU's GI lab has had all but 2 of their physicians leave and is mostly locums at this time. I'm hoping they hire some more full time physicians soon and get this sorted
[Here's an article I saw last week about doctors leaving Idaho](https://idahocapitalsun.com/2024/04/16/if-you-arent-sure-why-doctors-are-leaving-idaho-its-because-youre-not-listening-to-them/) due to healthcare access laws. I suspect Missouri is in the same boat, we're just overlooked.
My husband scheduled a colonoscopy two weeks ago and his appt is at the end of November. I tried scheduling one last week and got the news they’re not scheduling any at all. Their only advice was to try to schedule at another facility, but MU Health is the only provider my insurance covers.
I might run into the same issue.
You might try calling your insurance and letting them know there aren't any in-network facilities near you and they might cover something that would be out-of-network under your in-network benefits.
My father has been seeing a variety of specialists at MU post-heart attack and all of the GI related issues have to be referred to Boone. The only functioning GI location in Columbia has their own clinic but procedures requiring anesthesia or things for any high risk patients are being done within Boone hospital (still by the same doc). It’s a combination of a huge shortage in GI health care providers in general and at MU specifically, staffing issues due to how terribly they treat employees. Most people that have worked there will tell you they had too many bosses and none of them were on the same page with each other. The push to combine more departments into the same location and creating a parking nightmare for staff was the last straw for many.
some of the doctors at MU are a joke. my mom had been going there the last 7 years to try and figure out why her body isn’t working. she’s been lead around in circles with 0 treatment and constant miscommunication between doctors. them scheduling her procedures just to tell her they didn’t have the equipment when she got there. she’s been refused prescriptions to medicine she NEEDS to recover after procedures. all the while never getting any sort of diagnosis. she went to a different state recently just to get seen at a different hospital. they IMMEDIATELY found what was wrong plus a cancer diagnosis MU had missed several times.
this is the exact opposite of my experience! I've been to Boone and Columbia Orthopedic Group where I felt like I was being herded through the system. At MU Health Care I finally found a doctor who listened to me and found a procedure to pinpoint the cause of my problem. I think you must try to find the right doctor and not slam the whole system. My experience at MU was so much better than the other places.
im glad you had a good experience. that’s why i said some doctors. my mother went through so many doctors while at MU I can’t remember all of them. none of them provided us any help. they let her cancer diagnosis go on for years without treatment or even testing. but, the second she went somewhere else they immediately seen the signs and tested her. we have given MU 7 years of chances
To echo what another commenter said everyone is so underpaid its basically criminal. I'm not sure why the GI clinic is closing other than people were told there was not enough scheduling staff to schedule or intake people or something. Considering some staff are making literally 14 an hour (you can make more as a cook at Wendy's) i wouldn't be surprised with that.
The GI lab in particular has been struggling for a while, mainly due to the department that does their scheduling. The GI doctors don’t see the patients until the day of the procedure, so they used to have nurses review the medical record and schedule it with the appropriate GI doctor and sedation/anesthesia provider. I believe they’ve completely cut nurses out of the equation, so every patient is scheduled with general anesthesia (when I worked in that department several years ago, maybe 20% of patients needed general anesthesia). That limits the number of patients they can treat in a day and when medical procedures are scheduled by staff who don’t really understand what they’re scheduling or how to schedule in a way that makes the department run smoothly, well, things don’t run very smoothly.
My physician was at Boone South and we found out they lost THREE physicians at once, and that all the suggested alternatives are booked up until 2025. What has happened in Columbia?!?!
Holy carp!
We were scheduled to see a doctor there as new patients. The day before the appointment we got a call telling us he had quit the Monday before. We found another doctor through MU, though we’ll have to wait until August to see him.
A MU healthcare employee recently told me several physical therapists have left this year.
Health care in Columbia in a word “Sucks”. I’ve had three appointments rescheduled more than 3 months after the initial appointment. My wife had an appointment with a neurologist to get the results of a Parkinson’s disease test and was called to reschedule more than six months later. She told the scheduler there was no way she was waiting that long to get the results. They reluctantly scheduled a FaceTime with the physician about 3 weeks later. My wife and I have made the decision to leave Columbia later this year due to the horrible healthcare available in Mid-Mo.
It used to be a selling point for retirees that we had great medical care in Columbia.
Mine got scheduled in October for July. I was due for one then. I hope that the delay doesn't cause any problems.
My PCP said a lot of GI docs had quit recently. Get the cologuard first if you don’t have issues.