[Cancer]
[cancer] Field notes from Cancerland, miscellaneous edition
On being exhausted, albeit for good reasons
As previously mentioned, Friday afternoon I drove ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=1){kind=small}
the_childbravado111
A bit more on fiction from Original Destiny, Manifest Sin
A couple of days ago, I posted a bibliography of published short fiction from my novel-in-progress Original Destiny, Manifest Sin [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ]. Of course my Swiss cheese post-chemo brain forgot something. “Tom Edison & His Telegraphic Harpoon” was published in Weird Tales #345, June/July 2007. There may be another besides that, but I am having trouble sorting it out. Stoopid chemo brain.
The billing problem with my hospital
Remember my ten phone calls to talk to seventeen different people about my insurance company not being recognizing my oncologist as in-network? [ jlake.com | LiveJournal ] As of this past Thursday, I have now spoken to twenty-one different people, still without resolution. Friday’s two amazing discoveries were [a] my health insurance carrier has now provided two, completely contradictory explanations for why they don’t recognize my doctor is in network; and [b] my hospital’s billing department has a “no transfer” policy, which means when you call back to follow up on a complex problem, you have to explain everything from the beginning to whomever answers the phone rather than being able to talk to the person who you were previously working with.
[a] is deeply annoying because it makes the problem very hard to solve when the problem definition keeps changing.
[b] I complained about to the hospital’s patient advocate office. It’s a deeply stupid policy. I was promised a callback from either the patient advocate’s office or from the billing department, neither of which I have yet received. It occurs to me that the way around a “no transfer” policy is to call the office about once a minute until the person I want to talk to happens to pick up the phone, but this plan has its disadvantages in that the people I need to help me will not be kindly disposed to me ringing their phones off the hook. This is incidentally the first time in three decades of calling various customer service departments that I’ve ever run into this policy. Something I informed the patient advocate’s office of in detailed terms. I’m sure it makes sense to some manager somewhere, but from a patient service point of view, this policy is deeply stupid.
This has gone beyond ridiculous. If the next round of phone calls doesn’t produce resolution, I am going to open complaints with both the Oregon Insurance Division, that regulates insurance companies in the state, and the Joint Commission that manages hospital accreditation in Oregon.
Getting political
A number of people have suggested that I should try to reframe my experiences for a political audience, both in terms of attempting to place op-eds in one or more major national newspapers, and in terms of writing to senators and congressional representatives. While healthcare isn’t really my core political hot button, it’s certainly the life I’m living now. And the absurdities of the system are profound in their manifest illogic and cruelty. Put simply, we optimize to prevent fraud and protect profits, and in the process punish patients for being ill. So I’m going to be working on that. If you have experience with healthcare activism, or contacts with major national media and political figures, please contact me with suggestions or experiences that might be helpful.
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Posted: 8:39 am Sun February 24 2013 |
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Comments
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@jay_lake My advice – open those complaints now. You paid for them to be at those desks, it’s perfectly okay. #BTDT
For better worse, people don’t respond to science or statistical studies, and some biased people even hold them in scorn. People do respond to individual stories, and it’s fair to use them when they’re representative, which yours likely is. Get political.
As for the “no transfer” policy, sounds like someone solving one of their own personal problems at the expense of providing the best service. Keep at it.
It’s good that you’re reminding us of these issues so we can all try to do something about it, even if that solution probably won’t come in time to help you, Jay.
It’s a lot to expect that you’ll become a more public advocate of improved healthcare for the terminally ill while you’re sick yourself, but I hope you can get the attention of some legislators, or some celebrities who might take this on as a cause.
I concur with Konanut. Start the process of complaint now.
Getting a politician on your side is A Good Thing. This can be anyone from a state assembly member to one of your U.S. senators. They can actually DO something to help you (and the rest of us).
The other route to go might be a local consumer affairs reporter.
[...] [cancer] Field notes from Cancerland, miscellaneous edition »02-24-2013 [...]
If I were you, I’d contact KATU-TV. I’m sure they have a reporter that covers people problems and if they choose yours, help solve them. Health insurance issues have always been a hot button in Oregon (I lived there from 1981-2005. And all of the medical people involved would love the TV exposure – NOT! nothing like being exposed to solve an issue.
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