Friday, July 10, 2009

Quit Wasting My Time

I apologize. My blog will be full of happy posts again soon, but right now it feels like our life has been consumed with the dog attack on the Genius. It really hit me today that this is just not going to be a quick fix. First off.... her nose is being bandaged different. We are using the paper tape instead of the bandaids. Therefore, her saline soaked gauze is drying out quickly. Leading to stuck on gauze which makes her nose bleed a little more every time we pull the gauze off. Therefore, she is now crying every time we pull them off. It is heart wrenching.
Secondly (and this really burns me up), I spent over an hour on the phone today dealing with insurance issues. See, when we went to the ER we were assigned a plastic surgeon. He was the one who stitched her up AND the one whose office we waited at for 4 hours the other day. The same one who did not remember her and the same one who has STILL not called with a date for her "urgent" skin graft. This past Monday we had gone to a different plastic surgeon for a second opinion. His opinion was that the first doctor was doing fine, but he said he was willing to accept the Genius. We chose to stay with the first one, but that was before the aforementioned issues arose. After much discussion we decided to go back to the second doctor. We all felt great with the decision. But I remembered to call and tell them we were switching. It started with a call to the Genius's PCM. They told me to call our insurance and request a referral and to check and see if this second doctor is in our network. I called and spent 39 minutes on the phone. Basically I talked to one person and they said that they could not find this second doctor. They transferred me to another department. That department could not find this doctor and told me that we could switch but that we might end up paying. They finally transferred me again and this lady told me we could not just ask to go see a plastic surgeon. I informed her that we did already have a plastic surgeon and wanted to just switch. She said that the first doctor is NOT listed as a plastic surgeon. My BP was starting to spike by now. I asked her if our insurance would cover this second doctor. Basically they will pay for half so we have pay the rest... at least till we reach settlement. But when doctor #1 says he is not sure he can fix her nose and doctor #2 says he CAN but that it will take time.... what would YOU do for your daughter? Obviously, we are going with doctor 2. But, nothing like feeling like people don't care and nothing like thinking we spent over an hour dealing with this today. Then we had to stop and buy merderma skin cream to help her scarring under her eyes.
I think that covers my complaint for the day.
On the cute side of things...
The Hippie made up two super cute songs and sings them all the time now. They go like this, "Pecker birds they peck, Pecker birds they peck. Peck, peck peck all day. Peck. Peck." "Tweeter birds they tweet. Tweet a lot. Tweet. Tweet. Tweet." Very endearing to listen to while we drive down the road. Also very funny when you are washing the van and hear your husband unknowingly singing, "Pecker birds they peck. Peck, peck, peck." =)

4 comments:

Kristan said...

Kristen I fell your pain. I've been getting the run around and the waiting game for nearly 5 years for Olivia's stomach problems. Now they tell us that they are slightly concerned that her nutrilfil level has been up for well over a year. Each time it was up they said no big deal, but now looking back they say it could be an issue. We are now on our waiting game for the next specialist (allergist and immunologist). I fell like doctors really don't care they just fit you in when they can listen for the alloted 15 minutes tell you something and come back in 3 moinths and we'll talk again for 15 minutes. Maybe by the time she is able to go through med school herself she will be able to figure out her own issues. I am totlay felling your annoyance!!!!!

Unknown said...

You will have to sing my that song in the morning! Hey, my mom wondered if you couldnt put some saline on her gauze right before you change it so that it wets it enough to pull off without it hurting? Just a thought. You may have already tried this.

Clifford Jeffery said...

Kathlyn,
Yes, we are soaking it with saline right before and it does help. Tomorrow we are going to try soaking it in between changings and see if that will help at all. Tell your mom thanks for me!!!

Trinka said...

UGH!!!!! Maybe you could let them know you'll speak to "your attorney"? Sometimes that phrase has an amazing affect. Might as well get your money's worth out of him. Remember to document all this hassle and time on your "results of the accident" log. :(

So sorry this is all happening. On the bright side, maybe brother could turn this new little song into one the Army uses for it's running and exercises. It would be fun to see a big long line of guys singing "tweet tweet tweet" as they went past. :)