It's OFF!!!; A Study in Massive Incompetency

So, I'm sure you're wondering "what happened???"

Yeah, well, me too. I was there and I'm still not really sure. The "Mission Statement" of this particular hospital says "The mission . . . is to promote the good health of the community by providing the highest quality of care to both inpatients and outpatients . . ."

Heh. Heh-heh.heh. Ha! BWAH-HAH-HAH-HAH-HAAAA!!!! Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh. Oh, that's too damned funny. Really. Hee-hee-hee!

Let's start at the beginning. I've had this abdominal hernia for a couple years and finally decided to get it fixed last fall. So I got a referral from my physician and started the process of making the appoitments and such. The first two times I tried this they gave me arbitrary appointments during my work times that I couldn't make. (The first time they didn't even notify me until after the appointment had passed!)


So this was the third time I was trying to get this taken care of. At every step along the way I showed them both my insurances -- I have one from Ariane's work and one from my own. Since I was having my insurance through the System that support's Ariane's work they always took her insurance, but I paid my co-pays with the Medical savings account from my work.

So, at all points along the process they were well aware I had two insurances.

The day of the surgery we checked in at 9:45am right on time. They asked how we wanted to pay for the $100.00 co-pay, and I gave them my medical savings account card. The receptionist did a double-take, noting this wasn't from their hospital, and I told her it was from my own workplace. She asked if I had insurance, and I gave her both cards. Again.

She brought up her supervisor, who told me they had to get a referral for the surgery. What, now??? Yes, she said, my surgery had to go through my insurance and not Ariane's -- my insurance is primary, not Ariane's. Which means the referral process had been done through the wrong insurance network.

So, in short, they didn't have their receptionists trained to ask the right questions -- which means I have to start the process all over again from scratch.

I have appointments for next week. (Sigh)

Interesting side-note that may illustrate my anger at the congenital idiots that work at this hospital: the day I went for my pre-op labs they scheduled my appointment for 10:30am and i went fasting to get the right labs. I didn't actually get into the lab until 12:45 that morning, and as I'm sitting there in the lab the technician tells me the physician didn't fill out the lab slip properly, so I would have to go get it filled out correctly.

Now, I've been a nurse 26 years, and you can shoot me in the head the day I say something like this to a patient. I told the tech to call upstaits and get the orders herself (albeit much more politely than that.) Here I am -- diabetic, with a massive headache from not having eaten that morning, and she wants me to trot back up a flight a stairs and the length of the hospital to correct their mistake? Not bloodly likely!

When I got these labs back they had done only part of the labs necessary -- and my blood sugar was 57 -- dangerously low.

So, wrong appointment times, wrong insurance snafu, wrong labs, and endangered the patient -- which is somehow my fault. You can bet your sweet bippy I'm having the surgery at some other hospital. Ariane was absolutely furious -- she wanted to kick that self-righteous little supervisor's ass right there and then -- I had to grab her arm and lead her out.

God, how I love that woman.

So, I'll let you know.

~~JD~~

It's On, Baby!

Tomorrow -- Wednesday, February 7th, 2007. 9:45am call time; 11:45am surgery. Prayers are appreciated as always -- it's a scary thing, sure.

I'm still having trouble with that twingle-dingle thing, though. Yeesh!

~~JD~~

Max Lucado is just an incredible Preacher . . . .

One of the best things that's happened to us since we moved to San Antone has been the great churches we've attended. When we first arrived we attended the Northwest Church of Christ for about 3 years, which was about 300+ people and pretty active, which we liked. However, over time the distance (about 20 miles) got to be a bit tiresome, particularly as gas prices started to climb, so we started attending Oak Hills Church. Oak Hills is blessed with Max Lucado as their preacher - and he is just phenomenal.

Max has this knack for taking everyday concepts and making them into compelling sermons and studies. And here's a little secret: if Max has written a book about it, we've probably been hearing about it as a sermon series at Oak Hills about a year prior. His book you'll be seeing in about a year (and that we're in the middle of right now) is called Pure Sex. It's a bit unusual in that the sermon outlines are available online so that parent's can "preview" them before they get to worship -- no surprises for little Johnny or sister Susie. (They're also availabe as downloads of the sermons from iTunes as well.)


When's the last time you heard a sermon about Sex at your church? The sermon series we just finished on "John 3:16", where Max analyzes the passage word-by-word, the word "perish" lead to a study about Hell that was far from your usual fire-and-brimstone sermon -- the most scriptural and unusal sermon I think I've ever heard. Max is the master of gently spoon-feeding you little concept after little concept until suddenly you've got a tummy full of scripture and a mind hungering for more.

He's even had Hermie and Wormy co-star onstage with him during the sermons. It was Christmas, and Max got a tie with Hermie on it; Hermie got a tie with Max on it. (If you're not familiar with the characters, they're the stars of Max's children's books -- follow any one of the links.

Really good stuff. Go buy one already.

~~JD~~

Just Some Newsy Little Notes

Julian had his UIL performances today for violin. (I used to know what "UIL" stood for when I did it myself back in High School Choir; something like University Interscholastic League or something.) UIL is the group that puts on the music competitions at the High School level. Any individual or group wishing to perform selects a piece from the prescribed selections. Pieces are graded acoording to difficulty; so if you have a piece of moderate difficulty level and get a score of "1" (Perfect), you still didn't do as well as somebody who played a very difficult piece and got a "2" (Near Perfect.)

Julian played a moderate-level of difficulty piece last year and got a "1" for it. I think that's why he was selected as First chair for the JV band. He's been working really hard with a music tutor (who is a violin player for the San Antonio Symphony himself) all year. So when he chose a piece with a very high difficulty level, he started practicing over a month ago with a fervor rarely witnessed.

Didn't surprise me a bit when he received another "1", either. His mother remarked last week she couldn't tell the difference between the recording and Julian any more.

His mother is (again) in full swing at UT finishing up her Nursing pre-requisites. She's thinking about going to Physician's Assistant school too -- and she's got the grades for it. (All A's except for one "B" in Anatomy lab -- only onc credit, but you'd think the sky fell in. Yeesh!)

Me -- my surgery's on for Wednesday the 7th at Ariane's Hospital. I'm the last case of the day -- 12pm to 3pm; with Recovery from 3pm to 6pm; assuming all goes as planned. It just occurred to me the other day -- they'll do a couple of things as precautions before the surgery should anything go wrong, they can be prepared. It's pretty much standard procedure everywhere I've ever seen a surgery. They'll put an IV line in me (well, yeah -- I've seen enough surgeries to expect that.) They'll put a tube down my throat when I'm out to help me breathe (again, I expected that -- so there better be some ice cream in it for me!)

And . . . . they're gonna catheterize me.


You know -- put a tube up my pee-pee so I don't wet the Operating table.

Oddly enough, that is the thing (pardon the pun) that's bothering me the most. They'd better wait until I'm damned near unconscious to do that one to me. (Maybe I can just do it myself before I get on the gurney.) I really don't want anybody I don't know poking around my twingle-dingle, y'know?

I mean . . . MAN!

Gotta think about that one. Yeesh!

~~JD~~

P.S.: YEEEEESH!!!!!!