Health Insurance!

I do not understand Health Insurance.  Why do they have to make things so complicated?  In my mind, if you are insured, you should be covered, that simple.  Unfortunately it is not that simple and I am convinced that Health Insurance companies are the devil and do not care about one's heath at all and instead only care about making money.

Currently I am still on my graduate student health plan.  Prior to even visiting my surgeon I checked to see if he was in-network.  Of course with my luck he was not.  So I asked the podiatrist I saw to refer me to another specialist in hopes that I could find one that was in-network.  He did and of course that specialist was also out-of-network.  After several phone calls to my insurance company, I was told it would be ok because my policy states that if there I can not find a doctor within a 50 mile radius that the doctor I see will be treated as in-network.  So great, right?  In the midst of all of this, my insurance company informs be that foot operations are not covered and they use the phrase "subluxation of the foot".  Well this confused me as well because I had "subluxation of the peroneal tendons".  The foot and ankle are relatively close and I feared that for some reason this would not be covered now.  No one at the insurance company wanted to confirm that the foot and ankle are separate and not to worry until I called one day at the doctors office prior to getting x-rays demanding a clear answer.  A nice woman told me the feet and ankle are separate and not to worry.  Great!

Next thing I know, I am getting a letter in the mail asking me to state how the injury occurred, when it occurred, and where.  So I sent that information in.  Then I get a claim letter for the first doctors appointment with the surgeon and they did not treat it as in-network.  So I called my insurance company again probably for at least the 20th time.  They transferred me to someone else, who said I should have seen an orthopedic surgeon closer to home who was in-network.  After arguing for quite some time she finally looked up my call history and could see how many times I had called and saw that someone did in fact tell me it should be treated as in-network!  HA!  After that she waived her magic wand and said ok it will be treated as in-network and apologized.  Then she was extremely nice to me and I started to feel somewhat bad for being so bitchy on the phone.  Then she said she wasn't sure if the hospital would be treated as in-network.  I no longer felt bad for being bitchy.  I told her I didn't know I could control what hospital my doctor could preform surgery at.  She said I couldn't, so I then asked her why I would be responsible for paying that.  I am still waiting to hear the final answer on that one.

So my question is, why did they make it so complicated?  Prior to surgery, I was worried so much about the cost of all of this that I was in tears.  Its stressful enough knowing you have to have surgery and are going to be laid up for 8 weeks, why can't insurance companies make things easier for you instead of more complicated?

I am hoping when I start my new job my insurance will be much better and not as difficult to work with. This was pretty ridiculous.  I honestly think health insurance should be a right and not a privilege.  I am lucky in that my insurance is going to be footing the majority of the bill.  But I still feel the need to bitch about this experience because it was so irritating.

Monday will be my half-way point!  Almost done!

A Day at the Beach!

My cast was already too lose after the second day, so we had to go back to the doctor's office this week to get another cast put on.  The hassle of it all is that my doctor's office is over two hours away!  However, there are many lovely beaches around Portland, and I love the beach, and my husband loves to surf.  There happened to be good waves that day, so we got our stuff together and spent a day at the beach!

We visited Popham Beach, which is my favorite beach in Maine.  They have beach wheelchairs, so my husband was able to push me out to the beach.  I plopped down in a beach chair and my husband used a laundry basket and two pillows to keep my leg elevated.  It was perfect!  It did get a little warm and I was jealous of everyone able to go swimming in the ocean, but it was still wonderful to get out and get some sun and enjoy the beautiful ocean.

After the beach we went to my doctor's office and I got a new cast.  It is much tighter and more of my toes are sticking out now.  I might get adventurous today and give myself a pedicure.  The incision wound still looked good and they said everything looked great.  I have been a little paranoid about getting a blood clot.  I read someone's blog who got a blood clot and have been worried about it since.  I asked the nurse who was putting my cast on what to look for in case I do get one.  She said most people have them and don't realize it.  However, she said she has worked there for over four years and has only seen 2 patients get blood clots.  She said both patients were being noncompliant and were walking on their cast when they were suppose to be non-weight bearing!  Goes to show you how important it is to follow the doctor's orders.

In two weeks I will go back to get a new cast put on, and hopefully they will release me so I will be able to get out of the house more and go back to work!

Also, I have a new tip to share in regards to showering/bathing.  I have started taking baths.  I have found it is really easy to sit on the edge of the tub, then with my back facing the other side of the tub I reach my arms back to the opposite side of the tub and just lower myself in.  Unfortunately, I can't sit back and relax because our tub is facing a wall, therefore I am not able to hang my leg over the right side of the tub.  But it is nice just to be able to do it.  I don't see myself attempting to shower.  The idea of taking a shower with crutches doesn't sound so great, plus I am not very graceful, so I can easily foresee me slipping and falling.  The tub is great though!

3 Weeks Down!!!!

Tomorrow will be 3 weeks or 21 Days (sounds better) since my surgery.  I am still on bed rest, and keep my leg elevated for the majority of the day.  The doctor told me at my last visit that if I keep up the good work and keep it elevated I will be released and will able to go to work and move around more.  I am able to get up and down the stairs much more easily and spend more time downstairs than up somedays.  My toes still turn blue and it becomes painful if I am up on my feet too long, but everyday the pain and swelling is less.  It is amazing how much better the cast feels in comparison to the splint.  It is so much lighter and makes crutching around much easier.  However, my cast is already very loose.  I was told this would happen in a few weeks time.  But I called the day after I got my cast because I could stick my hand down my cast where my calf is (great for itching).  I was afraid it might be too loose and I am terrified of hurting my ankle or getting an infection.  The nurse I spoke with told me to go through the weekend to see how it felt.  She said a loose cast can become irritating to the skin and it can be bad if it rubs against the incision.  So Monday I will probably go down for a new cast which sucks because its a 2+ hour drive.  So we are thinking about going to the beach in the morning since we will be driving all the way down to Portland Maine.  There is a beach with sand wheelchairs and I am thinking if I keep my foot elevated the whole time, the beach and sun will do me good?  I am probably a little deficient in Vitamin D since I have been indoors so much the past 3 weeks.  What do you think?  If we go I will let you know how it goes.

Sometimes I get on these "Poor Me" kicks where I think about how much this sucks.  I will watch my husband walk around the house and be able to do things I cannot because I am on crutches.  But I recently have been thinking about all of the people who cannot walk for the rest of their lives, or who always have to rely on crutches or a cane.  I try to keep that in mind and remember that this is only temporary and in a few weeks I will be walking again and life will go back to normal.  I need to start realizing how fortunate I was to have insurance and to be able to have surgery to fix my problem so that I can be active again.  We just had a friend over who was telling me when he broke his leg he had a cast on his entire leg!  That would suck!

Today is my husbands and my first anniversary!  We were married last year in Camden, Maine.  Because I can't really go anywhere we have decided to stay home and we are going to cook some lobsters and have a nice dinner!  We had a lobster bake for our wedding, so I suggested starting a tradition of having lobster for every anniversary.  :)  Sounds like a wonderful tradition to start!