Tag Archives: hospital

The post in which I don’t bitch about health insurance…

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I know the hip thing to do is bitch about health insurance and the American medical system on social media. There seems to be an entire cottage industry dedicated to telling us how awful everything this. My experience over the last year has been the polar opposite of the narrative I’ve seen being pushed across the internet. 

About a month ago, I got a notice that BlueCross didn’t want to pay for my 30-day heart monitor. Frankly, with the $10,000 bill associated with it, I didn’t exactly want to pay it either. But, as it was “not medically necessary,” according to their note, they weren’t going to pay. That’s despite two cardiologists deciding that that level of monitoring was, in fact, medically necessary. 

After several long conversation with me – and presumably even longer discussions with people representing the hospital system and the test provider, it looks like BlueCross ended up paying out about $3,000 as the “insurance rate.” I just paid $36 as my portion, and everyone now appears to be satisfied that they’ve done their due diligence and has gotten a fair shake. 

I honestly was expecting more of a fist fight on that. Who really knows? It may yet come back to rear its ugly head, but for now I’m considering it a win.

Look, I’ve learned a lot about health insurance in the last year. It’s not an ideal system. It requires you to keep a very close eye on your treatment plan and everyone involved in it. Even more so, it means staying on top of your insurance provider, knowing their terms of service and the ins and outs of your policy, and questioning everything that doesn’t pass the common sense test. That’s just the baseline starting point to participate in the system. I don’t know that it would be any less complex under single payer. Under any universe of care, I expect that I would want to be very aware of what was happening and the services that were being provided on my behalf. 

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. A week full of suck. The work I do to pay the bills is, by necessity, somewhat unpredictable. There’s very little way of knowing from day to day or week to week how high or fast the tide of work might be running. This week, all week, the tide was running high and fast and shoving every damned thing towards the rocks at every opportunity. Some weeks are like that. Still, I’ll be awfully glad to see the backside of this one… on the off chance that next week will contain less suck.

2. The good old days. I miss the good old days of the Great Plague – when the masses were all running scared and staying home. The commute into the office was an absolute dream back then. I imagine it’s how the leaders of the old Soviet Union felt, with lanes down the center of each highway reserved exclusively for them. Now it seems every schmuck with four wheels is back on the road. Good for the economy, I suppose, but I’m just not sure I’m in favor of it.

3. Allegany County. I couldn’t help but notice yesterday that my old home county is now sitting firmly atop the list as having the highest case rate of the Great Plague in the state of Maryland. I also noted, perhaps obviously, that for a while there the local hospital was so overrun with patients they were diverting sickies elsewhere… when and if they could find a bed. Now, I’m not saying all of these things could have been entirely avoided, but there’s an awfully simple way a lot of the troubles could have been minimized or mitigated… but that would depend on not getting your medical advice from talk radio and YouTube, so it’s a pretty big ask.

A funny thing happened on the way to the emergency room…

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OK, well maybe it wasn’t so much a funny thing as a ridiculously painful thing. After putzing around the yard most of the afternoon and busying myself shoving furniture around the living room, I noticed a dull ache that seemed to be centered around the bottom of my sternum. No big deal, thought I… I probably just pulled something heaving the couch into its new position. Grabbing a cold beverage and Tylenol, I started making dinner. Well, that lasted about 15 minutes before the pain started moving up and across my chest. Now, I’m not a fancy big city doctor, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this isn’t a good thing. After putting it off another ten or fifteen minutes, I knew it was time to go.

Having a bit of a “typical man” streak, I loaded the address of the local emergency room into my Garmin and set off. I certainly wasn’t in enough pain to justify calling an ambulance… Yet. It’s a quick drive to the ER, especially on a Sunday night, but when the waves of nausea set in, a 5 mile drive seems like it takes hours. Every stop light becomes a personal affront to my sense of order and well being. By this point, I really feel an overwhelming need to toss my cookies. Drawing up a reserve of determination not to spew all over my car’s interior, I drove on. By the time I get to the hospital, I was feeling more or less like someone was busy sticking me in the chest with an ice pick. It’s absolutely as much fun as it sounds.

After five hours of poking, prodding, having blood drawn, getting chest x-rays, EKGs, and meeting with 2 ER doctors, they decided that what I actually had was a bad case of acid reflux. There must be something to their diagnosis, as after giving me some ass-tasting meds and filling a prescription for Nexium, I was feeling much better. Although I’m feeling better and enjoying the unexpected day away from the office, now annoyed at the thought of what’s going to be a ridiculously large bill for a case of heartburn. I’m even more annoyed that I have to take more time off tomorrow to go visit my new “primary care” doc, who I was conveniently referred to by his friend running the ER. He’s supposed to be a specialist in stomach stuff and one of his partners is apparently a hot shot cardiac guy… so two birds with one stone, I suppose.