Letter from Jason E. Hewlett

A&D Continues to Let Us Down

I need to express my frustration, publicly, with A&D taxi services. Like most people who don’t have a car, I depend on medical taxi transportation to get to my doctor’s appointments, especially when they are in another county. In my case, my Bassett Health navigator and I set up an appointment with an eye doctor in Vestal about a month ago that A&D medical taxi services agreed to provide transportation for. I called A&D both the day before and two days before the day of my appointment to confirm my transportation with them so there could be no mistakes or excuses.

My doctor’s appointment was scheduled for Wednesday, December 18 at 10:40 a.m., so A&D’s job was to pick me up at 9 a.m. and drive me to Vestal (and then back to Oneonta after my appointment). It was 9:15 a.m., and the A&D cab driver was late and I didn’t want to miss my appointment, so I called A&D three times before someone would pick up the phone.

The representative who finally picked up told me that my trip was “reassigned” and that I would have to reschedule my doctor’s appointment in Vestal if I couldn’t get there another way. I immediately called my Bassett navigator and found out that A&D waited until 8:30 a.m. to inform him that I was reassigned. My navigator explained to me that there was no way to find another ride to Vestal in such a short amount of time. He also tried to calm my stress and anxiety by telling me that many of his other clients are routinely let down by A&D, some even worse. My navigator and I also had the same frustration for the same kind of appointment (an eye doctor in Vestal) about a year ago.

After voicing my frustration with A&D with many others who are also frustrated with them, it’s now clear to me that A&D is lacking integrity when it comes to their own taxi services. If they are too understaffed or underpaid to do their job and be there for us when they said they would, they could at least be honest with us and tell us (with enough time in advance to make other arrangements) instead of giving us a false sense of hope and then forcing us to reschedule or cancel our doctor’s appointments.

Jason E. Hewlett
Oneonta