health care frustration

Health care frustration

Facts:

(a) On Wednesday night, Lucas puked all over me, but otherwise was

running around and seeming to feel fine.

(b) On Thursday, we kept Lucas home from daycare because he still

couldn't keep food down. Between pukings, he was in good spirits.

(c) On Friday, Lucas returned to daycare. As far as we know, he didn't

throw up at daycare. Although he's usually a good eater, he only ate

the fruit in his lunch. Of course, by the time we found this out, the

doctor's office was closed.

(d) On Friday night, Lucas didn't want to eat much. I got him to eat

about half a pear. An hour after eating it, he threw it up. But

otherwise he seemed in good spirits. I hoped he would be able to eat

on Saturday morning.

(e) It's now Saturday morning and Lucas is showing NO interest in

eating. This means he's now gone 2.5 days eating hardly anything. And

of course it's Saturday, so the doctor's office is closed.

I went online to my health insurer--Blue Cross of California--to try

to find an urgent care clinic nearby that's covered by Blue Cross. I'm

not sure he's at the ER stage, since he seems to be doing fine

otherwise, wanting to play and appearing otherwise to be in good

health.

But:

(1) When I went to look for an urgent care center, the Blue Cross site

didn't have my plan listed under its many health plan options in its

drop-down menu. When I chose what I thought would be the closest type

of plan, no urgent care center showed up as available.

(2) So I tried to register on the site. It asked for my 9-digit ID

number. Next to "Member ID" on my card, there is a 12-digit ID number,

4 letters and 8 numbers. No reasonable combination of those numbers

allows me to register on the site. It said I could use my Social

Security number, so I entered that instead, and repeatedly encountered

an "internal error" message.

(3) So I went back into the drop-down list of health plans and

selected another random one. And what do you know? I was prompted to

download a list of Urgent Care clinics. And guess what? There isn't

one in my county covered by my insurer. Yes, I live in a state of 40

million or so people, and my insurer, I imagine, covers many thousands

(if not tens of thousands) of people from my university, and yet it

offers no urgent care clinics in this county. The nearest one is about

45 minutes away. Nice, eh?

(4) So I did a Google search for urgent care centers in my county, and

one came up at the local hospital where Lucas was birthed (and where

we are, alas, very familiar with the ER because of Luke's propensity

for spiking very high fevers very quickly). "Great," I thought. "I'll

call over there and see if they happen to accept my specific insurance

plan." So I called the number listed on the website, and a very nice

advice nurse explained that she can't give me advice because Lucas's

doctor is in the university health care system, not the hospital's

health care system. She told me to call our doctor's office.

(5) I call Dr. Wonderful's office. The answering service takes my info

and says they'll have the doctor on call give us a call. I'm not

holding my breath. Dr. Wonderful is indeed a wonderful doctor, but the

health care bureaucracy working in my favor on a weekend? Highly

unlikely.

So it looks like we'll be taking Lucas to the ER for a visit that,

unless he ends up having some kind of digestive blockage, will place

us in a group that everyone complains about: people who use the ER for

non-emergency services because their health plans don't cover regular

care. But you know what? My health plan is supposed to be a GOOD

one--I pay extra for it, and we do have some choice of providers and

care.

I'm pissed. I've tried to do what I can to lobby for health care for

the poor and working class in this state, and to ensure coverage for

all children. But here I am, fully insured, and I can't even get my

sick child to see a friggin' doctor because the extent of his illness

didn't present itself until Friday night/Saturday morning.

Good fucking job, America.

UPDATE: Just a moment ago an honest-to-goodness doctor did call and

said there's a Saturday urgent care clinic closer than any of those

listed by my insurer--but still not in this county. He's going to call

and get an appointment for Lucas. Yay for doctors who are available to

return calls at 7 in the morning!

I'm still pissed, however, at the system.

Posted by trillwing at 7:04 AM