Dealing with difficult providers

I'm sure I've written about this topic before, but it's 5:30 in the morning and I've barely finished my first cup of coffee so I'm too tired & lazy to go back and look. Plus, this is a recurrent frustration I believe for most of us who are around the social work field long-term.

So yeah...........about them difficult providers.

I have a long history of similar exchanges with a certain agency who has been challenging at best to work with. I tend to think all things common sense go out the window with them and many of their staff.

In any event, I've been requesting paperwork for one of our shared clients for awhile from them to no avail and pretty much hit the roof yesterday when I got the finalized version back totally mincing my words about a client and downplaying major health and safety concerns that put them at risk under my watch.

After another participant recently had a serious incident for the same exact thing I've been requesting of them, I continued to see red.

I admit I did send them an email that was a tad bit snarky about their lack of follow up.

Which probably is not super professional.

And lead to the supervisor immediately being snarky right back, and especially defensive about their employee.

I did feel a little bad afterwards and responded as such.

At the same time though, I am thinking I shouldn't feel bad, especially if they are not documenting appropriately for the needs of the client.

I AM going to try calling them today with hopes of clearing the air (if they will pick up my calls).

How do/did you deal with similar? How do you keep it together when people you have to work with are in a much different place than you?

I do keep a paper trail, but I also want to keep my professionalism in check as well.

On my ride home from work last night, one of my ideas was to give it a day before I respond to something that immediately pisses me off like that......

Again, sorry for being so vague about the issue but I do try to keep things somewhat anonymous on here for obvious reasons.

Hope all things social work are going well for you guys this week.