4064 Medical insurance, care

Sunday, July 5, 2015

It takes 42 muscles to frown, and only 4 to reach out and smack you.

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Want to know if your medical insurance is good?  Don't bother reading online reviews.  Spend a few days in the hospital, especially over the weekend.

When I was hospitalized with pneumonia after Hurricane Sandy, I had doctors coming out of the woodwork, at the rate of about 5 a day.  Lung doctors.  Kidney doctors. Heart doctors.  Infectious medicine specialists. Whatever.  I didn't know who most of them were, or why they were there.  Some didn't do a damn thing, just asked me how I was feeling, and left.  Sometimes my "vitals" were taken by four different doctors (not nurses - although they did it too) every day.  Of course every single one of them submitted a bill.  Also, all kinds of tests and scans were being scheduled - most of which I refused because I saw no reason for them.

The woman in the other bed lived in a badly-maintained low income senior project, and I think she had just medicaid.  The doctor who had admitted her never even stopped by, even though she kept asking for him.  She was given no tests and no medicine.  Every time a nurse came in she told the nurse she still had a lot of pain in her leg, and the nurse said she'd tell the doctor, but the woman was released (pretty much kicked out) before I was, and STILL had not been seen by a doctor.  Not one.  She didn't even have a diagnosis, and she still had the pain.  She cried as she was leaving.

I suspect my insurance and credit rating were much better than hers.

Disgusting.

What brought this up was an online comment I just read.  People in other countries do not understand why anyone would be against the ACA.  A Canadian wrote that he noticed a big difference between medical care in the US, and in Canada (where it's all free).  In Canada the first thing a doctor will ask you is what is the problem, where does it hurt.  In the US, the first thing you are asked is whether you can afford the doctor's services, what insurance you have, and you might hear "Oh, oops, I don't accept that insurance, goodbye."

Disgusting.

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Back when Jay was in the hospital so much, I kept pretty tight control of doctors wandering in.  I'd ask them who, why, what they plan to do for him, and most of them kind of sputtered and said they'd been looking at Jay's records and thought it was an interesting case, so thought they'd stop by and say hello.  And then they'd leave, and they didn't submit bills.  After the first day, I guess the word got around that Jay wasn't a free lunch, and we didn't get drop-ins other than his own known doctors.

I kick myself for not managing my own hospital stay as well, but it's different when you're the one in the bed, I guess.  I need to get over being so compliant.
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3721 "Fun" day

Saturday, April 20, 2013

No two equals are the same.

-- Malaclypse the Younger --

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Daughter is away at her 15-year college reunion, leaving Hercules and Nugget home alone for three days.  Yesterday evening, Friday evening, Hercules took the Nugget to a playground, and went down a side with her on his lap.  She was wearing rubber-soled shoes, and her right shoe caught the side of the slide, and her leg got jerked back.  With the full weight of Hercules behind her.

I had agreed to babysit this morning while Hercules went on a trail-cleaning junket with his geocaching group, so when I saw his car in the driveway last night I went over to find out what time I should be there, and he mentioned that Nugget had a boo-boo, that she said her knee hurt, but he didn't see any swelling or bruising.  When he told me what had happened, I was very concerned, but she was already asleep for the night.

I went over there at 8 this morning, and it was pretty bad. Nugget was ok when sitting, and she could move the leg, but she kept saying boo-boo, pointing at her knee, and she couldn't put weight on it.  She'd stand on her left leg with the right foot held off the ground.  It was hard for Hercules to accept that she needed to go to the doctor or the ER, because a.) he REALLY didn't want to miss the trail cleaning, and b.) he's a tightwad and didn't want to pay the copay for what would probably be nothing.

I pushed, and he called the pediatrician.  Appointment at 11.  She sent us to the big hospital 40 minutes down the coast (they have a pediatric whatsis).  In the ER they xRayed her leg, and ... surprise!

Her Daddy went into the xRay room with her.  I waited in the hall, and it was heart-wrenching.  She'd been fine until then, but she didn't want to lie down, didn't want her leg in that position, didn't like that machine, her screams were terrible.  When she came out of the room she was fine again, and loved riding the bed back to the ER.

It's a spiral break in the tibia, so common they call it "the toddler break".  And playground slides are the usual cause.

The doctor who was to do the cast was in Princeton, which is an hour away.  We waited for him.

Nugget had so far been cheerful, but we were already past lunch and running into nap time.  We got her some food from the cafeteria, and some apple juice, and then she fell asleep on Daddy's lap.  The cast doctor arrived around 3:30, and wrapped her leg up right on Daddy's lap while she was still sound asleep.  She didn't even twitch.  With her new cast, in the hospital:

It's a hard cast, toes to just above the knee, with the knee slightly bent.  Four to six weeks.  It looks blue in the photo, but it's actually brilliant purple.

She slept in the car all the way home, and then for almost a hour longer after getting home.

She keeps asking us to take the cast off, and tries to push it off.  She knows what "broken" means, and every time I explain to her that her leg is broken, and the doctor fixed it, but we have to keep the "cast" (can you say "cast"?) on until it's all done fixing, she accepts that for about 15 minutes, then she wants it off again.

She can't stand or walk.  She's unbalanced with one knee bent, and putting weight on it even with the cast seems to hurt, but by this evening she'd learned how to use her little plastic chair as a crutch.  Figured that out all by herself.

The next few weeks are going to be rough on Daughter.  The Nugget weighs almost 30 pounds, and I haven't been able to pick her up for a few months.  The cast is surprisingly heavy, adds more weight.  Daughter probably weighs about 102.  We're going to have to figure some stuff out.  Anyone have any experience with a toddler in a leg cast?

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I got a laugh from the doctors and nurses when I said that she'd been born in this hospital, and wouldn't be 2 until next week, so, uh, any chance she's still under warranty?
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3691 Jasper is a good boy.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

There is a direct correlation between the size of the hoop earring

and the sluttiness of the wearer.

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Jasper hadn't seen a vet since we moved him here, partly because he freaks out so badly in the car that he has seizures, so he's way behind on checkups and shots.  Two of Daughter's three cats are similarly afflicted with car anxiety, and lucky for us, there's a vet who has outfitted a large RV as an office complete with x-ray and out-patient surgery.  He parks in the driveway and you bring your beasty out.

One of Daughter's cats had injured a paw last Thursday night, so Daughter made a Friday appointment for her cat, and for Jasper.

HOW DO CATS KNOW!?  The minute I got off the phone with Daughter, Jasper's ears went up, his eyes got big, and he ran and hid.  It ended up two hours later, appointment time, with me chasing him in circles around the house.  He started to run into the laundry room, realized that was a dead end, and just as I got to the doorway he changed direction and dodged out between my legs.  I reached for him, tripped over him, and jabbed the door frame with an over-long fingernail, bending it back mid-bed.  It HURT!  And it bled.  And the most amazing thing happened.

Jasper stopped, came back, sniffed my finger and my face as I sat there on the floor whimpering, and pretty clearly asked if I was ok.  He was apologetic.  He let me pick him up and bundle him into the carrier with a minimum of fuss.

He's such a good little boy.  (Also 12 lb. and very healthy.  And fascinated by the rabies tag on his collar.)

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Last January the eye doctor mentioned that I had a spot of dry macular degeneration in each eye.  The first time a doctor had mentioned them was in the late '90s.  Oddly, not every exam has produced mention.  The spots must small enough to miss on older equipment.  I'm older now, so I guess I should pay closer attention.  I made an appointment for today to check if there had been any progression.

There's been no change.  The doctor recommended a special vitamin/mineral plus lutein supplement. 

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I mentioned a problem at the hospital.  Someone else's intake form was in my folder in the ER.

In my post of 1/02, I find in retrospect I had made excuses for some of the doctor's and the hospital's actions.  It was not true that I had any kidney failure going on.  That whole thing was because I had mentioned that my last hospital stay was because of the kidney thing, and my kidney doctor was on staff, and he sort of moved in on me and took over and tried to force me into some tests I had previously refused .  Note - he pissed me off so much in the hospital that I have fired him.  It was not tachycardia that got me the heart monitor.  I had no chemical imbalances.  My sodium was fine.  I think it was the other woman's intake form that made things look worse than they were.

It IS true that the lung guy said that it was the worst case of pneumonia he'd ever seen.  It's also true that the nurses used a phrase in front of me (they thought I was asleep) that's code for "may not last the night, check often".  However, again, that prognosis may have been in error.

For the first three days, they had me listed as diabetic.  They were poking me several times a day to check my blood sugar, and the kitchen had me on a diabetic diet - wouldn't give me Jello or ice cream when I asked for it.  I'm not diabetic!  My blood sugar stayed rock solid, until once when I had two glasses of fruit juice just to see what would happen, and it went up one point.  Then right back down again.  I DO NOT HAVE DIABETES!  Yes, I do mostly follow a diabetic diet, because my father's family is riddled with it so I'm at risk, but hey, you don't wait until you have a heart attack to follow a heart-healthy diet!  I finally convinced them it was not necessary to keep testing, and to take me off the diet restrictions.

Also for the first three days, they had me on the cardiac floor, wearing a 24-hour heart monitor, and I had many visits from a cardiologist, and several ECGs, some kind of heart sonogram, and a heart CT scan.  Duh?  When I first arrived, my pulse rate was 100, but a) I tend to historically have a rapid heart beat anyway, usually in the low 80s, b) I had just arrived at the hospital and was upset, and c) it went down to normal (for me) rapidly and stayed low.

Finally, about the third day, I asked the cardiologist (who kept urging me to make an appointment with him as soon as I got out of the hospital) why people seemed so concerned about my heart, and he said, "We have to address your chest pain."  I said, "What chest pain?  I have no chest pain.  I haven't had any chest pain."   He said, "The chest pain you reported when you arrived at the ER."  I reiterated that I'd had no chest pain, and had NOT reported chest pain.

Within hours, the monitors were removed, and I was moved from the cardiac floor to a medical floor.  The cardiologist stopped visiting, too.

So, I'm wondering if some poor woman had arrived about the same time I did, with diabetes and reporting chest pain, and because the intake forms were screwed up I was treated for her problems (you know the intake info went directly from the form into the computer), and God only knows what treatment she was getting, possibly based on my intake info.

Also, I wonder what UNNECESSARY tests, monitoring, and doctor visits MY insurance is going to be billed for (and I will be co-paying on).  I can get copies of the reports and stuff, and an itemized bill, but I wonder if there's any way to determine what was necessary, and what was the hospital's error.  You KNOW they're not going to simply admit an error.
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3690 The Collapse

Thursday, January 17, 2013

“Elitist” is redneck code for “educated”.

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So, I was let out of the hospital two weeks ago yesterday, and I think I've been 100% for at least the past ten days.  Full of energy, but I'm being good and not trying to do too much, as they'd warned me not to try.  It's only now that I realize how weak I had been for quite literally months.  My strength had been ebbing since the hurricane in early November, and the subsequent 11 days with no heat.

The Nugget had started nursery school in like September(?), and as expected she's had one cold with and without ear infections after another.  She and I traded back and forth.  She got better between bouts - I didn't.  I went a little more downhill with every cycle.

By late November I was having difficulty getting up if I had been sitting on the floor.  By mid December I had difficulty getting out of the tub after a bath.  By late December I was having difficulty going up stairs, even if it was just one step.  I had no strength in my legs.

Whatever was going on seemed to affect my thinking, too.  The weakness having come on so gradually couldn't have been all of it.  I noticed, but I just chalked it up to ... age?  I don't know.  Mostly it was that I had lost the capacity to care.  Is that depression?

By the time of my Thursday, 12/27, post, when I said I'd been sick for so long, I hadn't slept in like three nights, because of the coughing.   That night I coughed so hard I did something to a rib in my back.  It hurt so very badly when I coughed.  Friday morning I went over to Daughter's house hoping for massage or something, and she insisted on taking me to the ER.

Some weird stuff happened there.  I kind of tuned out and let go, so I don't know a lot of what went on that day.  The ER was very busy.  I was on a stretcher in the hall from late morning until sometime in the evening because they didn't have a room or something, but I didn't lack for attention from nurses, doctors, x-ray technicians, vampires. 

At one point someone left a file folder on my stretcher.  MY name was on the outside.  Daughter opened it, and was reading a form in it, when she said, "This isn't your name."  She flashed a page at me.  All I saw was "DIABETIC" in large letters across the middle of the page.  Daughter ran off and gave the folder to a nurse, and there was some fuss, and then I lost interest.  But somebody had screwed up badly.

For the next three days, that mistake haunted me.

Next post....

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One of the reasons I haven't updated before this is because after several weeks of good behavior, my laptop is choking again.  I started this post at 7:25.  It is now 8:45.  I've been getting hanging scripts which kill Firefox.  I've had to restart twice.  I just plain haven't had the patience to fuss with it.  I assume it's the "updates out of phase" thing again.
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Mostly back again.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Was discharged from the hospital this evening.  Tired and weak.  They told me to take it easy for a few weeks, get back slowly.  Otherwise, I feel great, and I have big gold stars all over all my test results.

I've left a few dozen doctors reeling.  When they looked at my intake x-rays they seriously didn't expect me to live.  Repeat that.  Seriously. The pulmonary specialist said he'd never seen a worse case of pneumonia.

I had injured a rib coughing, and THAT pain is what had taken me to Daughter for help.  She took one look at me and dragged me to the ER.  The pneumonia had screwed with other chemical balances, and I was in tachycardia, so they put me on a heart monitor.  Some other organs weren't functioning correctly.  My kidneys were on the verge of shutting down.  A team of specialists in major systems was rapidly assembled.

I guess they don't often find little old ladies my age who take no prescription meds on a daily basis.  Within 12 hours on the antibiotics I was doing better, and within two days everything was within specs.  My BP was 128ish/68ish, pulse had settled at 70, blood sugar held rock steady at 98-101.  Temperature wandered a bit, and my blood oxygen level was too low, at about 88 off oxygen and 93 on, but hey, I still had a chest full of infection.

So, they kept me until my blood tests said no more white blood cells marauding  (infection done), and my off-oxygen saturation, what I could manage all by myself, was holding in the low 90s.

The doctors think I'm amazing.

That damn rib STILL hurts a LOT though!
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3262 I am overwhelmed.

Monday, May 23, 2011

People who are easily annoyed are more annoying than the people who annoy them.

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I am feeling very beaten down.

I spent much of Saturday on my knees with pruning shears cutting down the thicket of Japanese knotweed taking over the back yard. There was nothing there but grass when the snow melted. Now it's already four feet tall. It's next to impossible to get rid of. The websites say stuff like getting a hypodermic needle and injecting weed killer into the stems - for years! And then maybe it'll die.

Saturday night, I had a lot of blood in my urine again. Apparently any kind of physical activity causes a problem. Sunday morning the first urine was dark brownish, but it quickly went to the usual pale yellow. This morning it was brownish again, and then alternated most of today between pale yellow, and the color of pink iced tea. I'm hoping it's the useless misplaced stent tearing up my bladder, not something more nasty going on.

The urologist has had my contrast x-rays and CT scan since Monday of last week, and hadn't even LOOKED at them as of Friday! I was so angry that over the weekend I researched another urologist. I figured if the current one didn't have something to say by mid-afternoon today, I was going to make an appointment with the only other in-network urologist within 15 miles who has a local hospital affiliation.

Well, I guess he looked at them this morning, because his office called just after lunch and asked if I could come in tomorrow morning. So now I'm a little worried. First there's no rush, then there's a rush?

And, the urinary urgency is getting worse. Like, oh gee, maybe my bladder is irritated. By a useless stent. Which is in the wrong place. Thank you.

In Saturday's mail I got a letter from the IRS. They think I owe more, want their money immediately, and are assessing a penalty.

In today's mail, I got a letter from the state of NY. Apparently The Angel didn't file my business sales tax return for 2010. (I've made no sales and have filed zero-dollar returns for years now.) They want their money immediately and are assessing a penalty.

Yesterday I figured it was about time to force the builder to fix the crappy stuff, like the bedroom windows that won't open. NJ has a new-construction warranty that builders have to honor. It's one year on everything, two years on structural defects, and three years on dangerous stuff. It's supposed to start from the closing date. So I dug the booklet out of the file to find out what the process is. Surprise. The starting date on the warranty is 6/30/10, which means it expires for the non-structural stuff next month! Um...I didn't close on the house until 10/13/10. I'm getting screwed out of four months of the warranty?

Uh uh. Hell no.

I fired off an email to my attorney this morning. He said to write a certified letter to the builder reminding him that he has to change the date, and listing what I want fixed. And copy my attorney on it.

Sigh.

Then I remembered that Hal needs a state inspection by the end of the month. I haven't changed registration on the three vehicles yet because two are here and one is still at the old house, and that makes things very complicated. (Also the titles are still at the old house.) I made an appointment for Friday morning with the nearest BMW dealership in NY, one hour 35 minutes up the road.

I need to pick up copies of my records and films from the White Plains hospital. I need to actually go there, because there are some things I want that I don't know what the technical words for them might be, and back and forth by phone or mail (no email) would be a pain.

And then this evening, just a half hour ago, I discovered that Fred the van has a flat tire. I know how to change a tire, but -- funniest thing -- because of the dropped floor, when a tire goes flat on Fred, you can't get a regular jack under him to lift him. I guess I'll have to call AAA tomorrow afternoon.

There's just too much pecking at me.

On top of all this, the old house is abandoned up there, probably overrun by mice digging nests in all my upholstered antiques and mattresses and closet contents, I'm losing my possible buyer, and I'M SITTING HERE ON A STOOL WITH NO REAL FURNITURE!!!
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