This sounds like malpractice to me but it’s hard to tell if it’s that or if they were just following California’s highly regulated medical process.
It is not.
Doctors are heavily regulated and closely supervised by Corporate and Government staff. The directives under which actual medical providers must work are often written by bureaucrats who have no competence to make medical decisions. You are seeing one of the results in this case.
You are on your own in this system. You must learn quickly when to escalate demands and when to back off, in order to protect your health and that of your family.
Welcome to government run health care.