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Jul 14, 2009 - 11:52 AM |
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I'm Just Not Allowed to Have a Peaceful Week Off |
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This Thursday, I am scheduled to visit Pittsburgh as a follow-up to my transplant surgery. I was to meet with doctors, have x-rays and labwork done, then receive a bronchoscopy to check for rejection. Annoying but necessary.
Only I cannot go. The hospital in Pittsburgh is under the impression that my insurance coverage has changed, even though it's the same coverage I've had for three years. If anything has happened, it's that someone took down incorrect information and only now was this info corrected for them.
The end result is that they checked in with the "new" (read: proper) insurance and were informed that there will be no payments for services unless the insurance receives a referral from my primary doctor to be seen in Pittsburgh. Simple enough, right? After all, he's the guy who had me go to Pittsburgh for transplant in the first place.
Of course it's not that simple. One phone call later, I learned that my primary doctor is no longer with the group service I've been using in Buffalo, and that he's also no longer working with the respiratory clinic that has overseen my care for the past 25 years. In essence, he's changed affiliations and is no longer working as a general practitioner, leaving me high and dry.
Now I have to find a new doctor, preferrably one who knows what the hell's going on when it comes to respiratory problems and post-transplant patients. I'm told my physician left a couple recommendations behind but that information wasn't immediately at hand and someone would have to call me back.
So, until I can secure a new primary doctor, obtain an appointment to see the man or woman, get into their system, get the insurance okay with this person, then get the needed referral, I cannot have the routine checkups performed in Pittsburgh.
Normally, it would take a month or more to get into a new doctor's office, but I'm betting the gods of irony will make it simple to get in this week. Normally that would be great, but since I took the entire week off so that I could use up my paid vacation before it was lost, I decided it would be the perfect time to send my car into the collision shop. Since I'm not allowed to drive home after a bronchoscopy anyhow, my Dad and I were going to take his truck instead of my car. For the time being, I don't have a way to get to any doctor's office in the first place.
I'm hoping the respiratory clinic staff can provide an adequate referral, but that feels like a longshot. None of them are technically my primary physician. It used to be simple since my primary worked alongside them. I'll probably have to go to the office and go through all sorts of unnecessary screenings just to get what I need.
The insurance system in this country continues to become more convoluted with each passing day.
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