medical

NO, I Don’t Think Your Kid Is Cute

When I woke up today, I was in some real pain. I thought the urinary tract infection I had last week had come back, or that I was having another kidney stone, but whatever it is, the pain was intense. I got up and took an alleve, which did nothing to alleviate the pain. I had a percocet leftover from when I had my last kidney stone, so I took that and laid down for a bit. That seemed to help some, but on a scale of 1-10, the pain was still at a “5”, so I called the doctor and made an appointment to go in.

We arrived at the doctor’s office for the appointment about 2:00 p.m, 15 minutes early for the appointment. The waiting room was about half full, mostly adults. But there was one mother there with a toddler. Now, I am not a miserly, mean old hag, but I was at the doctor’s office because I didn’t feel good. This child was allowed to run all over the waiting room, squealing and yelling as if they were outside in a playground. Every time it squealed, I had a surge of pain.

One time I looked at the child and said “Shhhhh!”. You’d think that mother would have taken the hint. That was my mistake. After I paid the least bit of attention to it, the baby came over and stood in front of me, wanting to play with me. That was when I told the mother that I didn’t feel good. She just picked the child up, walked back over to her seat, and put the child back down on the floor, for it to continue running and squealing. I looked at the mother, and she looked back at me, with that familiar look on her face that said, “Isn’t my child just soooo cute?” And I wanted to say, “NO. I don’t think your child is cute.”

The doctor said there was no sign of a urinary tract infection or kidney stone. No bacteria, no blood or protein in the urine. So, they gave me a shot of toradal in my hip, and scheduled an ultrasound for tomorrow, with instructions to go to the ER if the pain gets worse overnight. I am having SO much fun.

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The One Where I Go Off On A Rant…

Karen · 4 Comments

Remember back in July when I took my ride down the Kaibab plateau in the back of an ambulance. That little trip has been quite expensive. The bills started pouring in almost as soon as I got home, and then I had to go to Flagstaff to visit a cardiologist. I jokingly asked him to skip the stress test and just send me a bill, which he didn’t think was very funny.

This is what the total looks like right now, AFTER I have been paying on them since August: $7,648!

Anyway, in August when I got the bills from Northern Arizona Healthcare (NAH), I called them and tried to make payment arrangements. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone who could come up with more than $8,000 out of pocket right away to pay all those bills. But, I WANT to pay them, in installments.

When I called the first week of August and tried to make the payment arrangements, I was told to apply for Arizona Health Care Cost Containment Services (AHCCCS) and when I got my denial letter from them, to fill out a financial aid form and send it in to NAH along with copies of my 2009 tax returns, 3 months of paycheck stubs, and 3 months of my bank account statements. So, I dutifully filled out the application for AHCCCS on August 8, and mailed it in.

On October 1, I still had not heard anything back from AHCCCS, so I called them. The telephone number that is printed on the application is not the correct number. TWO HOURS waiting on hold and 5 different telephone numbers later, I finally reached someone who was able to give me my case number. She told me that they had not yet made a decision on my application, and that they had until October 8 to make that decision. She told me I would receive a letter advising me of that decision within a week after they decided.

On October 16, my last day on the job at the North Rim, I had to surrender my key to my mailbox when I closed out my employment. We didn’t leave there until October 23, and I checked the mail at the administrative office every day during that time. No letter arrived for me from AHCCCS.

Yesterday, November 10, I called AHCCCS again. I was on hold again for almost an hour. When the case worker finally came online, I asked if they had mailed out my denial letter yet. She advised me that they had mailed it on October 15 to my address at the North Rim. I told her that I never received it, and asked if she could send me a copy to my new address in Alabama. She said, “we don’t send out a second copy because it costs us money to do that.” I offered to send some money so they could send me the letter I needed, but she actually LAUGHED at that offer. I was livid! I had to hang up before I used some very nasty language that I knew I would regret later.

I feel like I am in a bad Twilight Zone episode. All I want to do is make payment arrangements on these medical bills, so I can pay them in installments without worrying about being turned over to a collection agency. I surprised that they haven’t done that already.

Today, I called NAH again, and explained the situation to the lady there, and she told me to write a letter advising them why I can not include my denial letter from AHCCCS with my application for financial aid.

Why do these things have to be so hard? What if I was an elderly person, or someone with not much education? What if I was someone for whom all this would just be too much so that they would just give up? I can tell you that I am feeling like I am almost ready to give up on this right now. And the medical industry wonders why people just walk away without paying. Sometimes it might just be because they make it too hard.

And you know that lady at AHCCCS, who told me it cost them money to send out a second denial letter? Well, why did I have to fill out that application in the first place. I KNEW I didn’t qualify for Medicaid, because I make too much money. It would seem to me that if medical facilities require you to apply for Medicaid and be denied before they will even talk to you about payment arrangements, then all those extra applications are costing the state more money than a second denial letter. And how come they couldn’t email me my denial letter? Just how much would it cost to do that, after I had already spent twenty minutes on the phone with the caseworker. In the time it took her to ask her supervisor if she could send me a second denial letter, she could have printed the letter or emailed it. AND she would have left a good impression of the system with her customer. Instead, SHE LAUGHED.

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The Long Ride–The Rest Of The Story

Karen · 6 Comments

So, if you are following this story, you know I took a long ride down the Kaibab Plateau in the back of an ambulance, and then I went to Flagstaff to visit Dr. Wani, the cardiologist. We went back to Flagstaff this week to get the results of all the tests that Dr. Wani and his crew did. And the results are: I have no blockages, no leaky valves, no enlarged heart, no high cholesterol. Nothing. I am very happy to say I am a normal, healthy 58 year old woman who obviously had stress induced chest pains for no reason.

Except that I think I may have been too worried about FabGrandpa. But you see, he had oral cancer in 2001. Specifically, Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the tongue. So, any time he has a sore or an ulcer in his mouth, I freak out. I can’t help it. It is my way to worry about the man I love. So, when he showed me a place on his lower gum about a month ago, a place that looked like an exposed jawbone to us, I of course immediately thought it was a recurrence of his cancer. That is why we went to Prescott to the VA Medical Center two weeks ago. And they sent us to see the ENT Cancer Specialist in Phoenix on Monday of this week.

When we got to Phoenix, we were taken in to the ENT Cancer Specialist’s office for him to examine FabGrandpa’s gum. And when he did, he smiled and said, “I think it is a tooth!” And in fact, it WAS a piece of a tooth that was embedded in FabGrandpa’s gum from 10 years ago when he had all his teeth extracted. So, he was given a referral to the dentist on the other side of the hospital to have it removed.

We hurried over there, where they took him right in and took that piece of tooth right out of his head. They didn’t even have to do a biopsy, because when they removed the tooth, they didn’t see anything else there. What a relief! FabGrandpa and I were so relieved, in fact, that we were so silly and giddy and happy that we practically danced on the sidewalk for the rest of the day. Except that we had to be in Flagstaff the next day for my appointment with Dr. Wani. So giddy, that we actually went to Denny’s just for dessert after we got checked in to our motel in Flagstaff. DENNY’S. A place where FabGrandpa usually refuses to eat. And I was so happy that I ate some pie, gluten and all. On purpose.

The next day is when I went for my appointment with Dr. Wani. They did an ultrasound of my heart too, also known as a Echocardiogram. It was uncomfortable but did not actually hurt. I was very glad we had not checked out of the motel yet, because I had to go back there to take a shower after it was all over with. It seemed like they used an excessive amount of that gel. Ick! It was interesting to see the images of my beating heart, showing all the chambers, but I kept thinking, “How much is this going to cost???”

So, we are both fine. While getting all those heart tests is not my idea of fun, at least we know my ticker is working just fine. And we know for sure FabGrandpa is in his second childhood, as he is teething, hahahhaa! The only thing is, I am “heartbroken” because somewhere along the way, I lost my camera. The new one, the one I bought in November. So I can’t show you the picture of silly, giddy FabGrandpa. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

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