a momentary medical rant

Have I mentioned recently how much I hate the medical system?

I was recently reminded of this issue when reading Marty's blog Travelin Oma, where she was talking about her issues with health care and insurance. (You can read the post I'm talking about here).

Then, when I talked to my mother last night I just about lost it again.

It seems my dad had to have a procedure done yesterday which entails stretching the tissue in his esophogus (he had esophogial cancer surgery a couple of years back, and he makes scar tissue way too efficently, so they do this procedure about every 3 or 4 months).

So, it was time to do this again, and my dad had made his appointment where they told him they could do this yesterday morning. They get to the place to have this done and they are told he's not on the schedule. AGAIN! The last time he went in they had done this to him too. For whatever reason the doctor's office doesn't seem to be able to follow one simple thing -- write it down!!

Once they got that part straightened out, then they were told that the code for the procedure was coming back as something not covered by Medicare -- WHAT!? He's had this thing done nine times before and Medicare has always paid for it.

I swear, it's like the older we get the more difficult the system makes it for us -- why should my mother have to tell the billing clerk what code they should be using to ask Medicare to pay for something that they've billed 9 times before?

It's almost like they're hoping all of us older folks will just give up and die off so they don't have to deal with us

It makes me plenty mad (can you tell?)

geesh