Following the medical money (or lack thereof)

 

A few weeks ago I wrote an article titled "From 'Medical Care' to 'Medical Couldn't Care Less'."  In it, speaking about conflicting medical bureaucracies with whom I'm having to deal at present, I said:

Neither bureaucracy cares about me (or any other patient) as a person.  They're just ticking off the boxes on their forms, checking their reams of regulations, and putting their organizations' interests ahead of anything and anyone else.

That's being driven home yet again by the latest medical shenanigans.  I'm in pretty severe pain (all the time) from a deteriorating spinal condition, but no doctor or nurse seems interested in speeding things up to get to a point where that could be alleviated.  Instead it's fill out this form, get that test, make follow-up appointments (which they then cancel because I haven't yet completed all the tests they want - but they don't tell me that until less than 24 hours before my appointment), and so on.  What's worse is that medical insurance is an integral part of the problem, in that they won't discuss further treatment until a series of tests are completed, even if those tests have nothing whatsoever to do, medically speaking, with the specific health issue under discussion.  The forms have to be completed, with all the boxes ticked off, even if some of those boxes apply to other conditions.  If I complain and argue about it, I'll be frozen out of the process until I knuckle under.

The problem is, all of this costs money - and with competing bureaucracies arguing over who is or is not responsible for the bills, I have to pay for everything up front, in the hope of getting at least some of the money back from one or the other agency in due course.  The fact that such costs run into thousands of dollars is irrelevant, as far as the bureaucrats are concerned.  I have to get the tests done;  if I can't afford to have them done, I won't be approved to proceed to further treatment options (for which they still won't pay, at least at present) through their bureaucratic processes.  If I can persuade doctors to offer the treatment(s) I need without medical insurance pre-approval, it'll have to be on a cash basis, in the hope that subsequent discussions with my lawyer might persuade the insurers to contribute something towards them.

I'm going to have my right kidney removed towards the end of this month (the culmination of the kidney problems I had last year, with four lesser surgeries having failed to correct the situation).  It'll take me a couple of months to get over that, I'm told, so back surgery will have to be on hold until I've fully recovered my strength.  If I can raise the money for that, it should happen late this year or early next year, if I can get my medical ducks in a row.

I'm going to be launching a fundraiser within the next week or so to ask for help in meeting these expenses.  This is a very costly situation for us. We're in the process of taking out a second mortgage on our home, and we've saved what we can to meet initial expenses, but we're still looking at a looming fiscal cliff in the not too distant future.  I know we're far from alone in facing that sort of problem:  I've mentioned others' fundraisers in these pages on occasion.  Thank you to everyone who's already been generous.  We couldn't have made it this far without you.

Peter