This will be fast as John forgot to recharge my laptop battery. (forgot? — jfh)
Today was a comedy of errors with the health care system. We arrived at the Rehab center for out-patient physical therapy only to find out it had not been approved. (They called home but we were already on the road.) So off to Super One for a shopping trip and walk around using my walker. I stopped several times. Last stop was at the cashier when my phone rang.
It was my doctor’s nurse saying they could not get the referral through the system (my insurance company), as I was not recognized in the system. Go figure? I have been there since 1988. Never occurred to me to ask what she had fed in and perhaps the numbers were wrong ? So I came home and called my employer to be sure I was covered and for how long – till April 1st was the first answer, and she said she would call the company and see about my being in the system. She did, but then got busy and didn’t contact us. Mid-afternoon I called and she said I was.
I then called the number where a few hours before I was not in the system” – Morning linkage went from Rehab to Primary care nurse, to insurance company and then reversed and eventually to me. With me having verified my ID number was in the system the request went round again – me to Rehab, etc., etc I had a phone call that it was done, and they would call the rehab center. I had already called. Unbelievable. We suspect someone mistook a 7 for a 1, or a 2 for a 5, or just maybe a nerve impulse didn’t jump a synaptic cleft and a finger that should have hit one key, hit another. At some point one has to let go of the need to understand what went wrong.
Now I’m approved for 15 visits through September– and the first will be this Wednesday. However, on April 1 (an appropriate day for this) the insurance company will be demoted to ‘secondary provider’ and the Gov-ment Medicare program is elevated to ‘primary provider.’ Even now Medicare has been billed by someone for something and we got a long form wanting information they can check to decide if fraud is, has been, or might be going on.
Thus another day of frustration. It won’t be the last. A curse is upon us all.
Nancy