Hi, Robert,
I find the local medical situation terrifying. My daughter had to be admitted to St. V. for an emergency a couple of X-masses ago, and I swear to god there were blood splatters on the wall behind her bed in her room. I am fighting allergies so bad right now they are preventing me from singing in the Chorus I sing for, and all the medical people I talk to are clueless. The feed-back from patients to doctors is non-existent. There’s no way a Doctor can tell when he prescribes you medicine whether it has killed you or cured you. Either way, you don’t come back. I think folks like you could get rich in the Obama technocrat age AND do a heluva lot of good by designing feedback systems so Doctors actually find out whether they have killed you or not.
As for hip surgery. I have been a “candidate” for hip surgery for years but never elected. But arthritic hips are different from osteomyelitic hips.
One good thing about medicare is that it doesn’t give a rat’s ass where you get your medical care. So, I went to Boston for high end carotic surgery a few years ago…. Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard …., the whole nine yards. It didn
‘t cost me a dime. I had relatives in Boston, so that helped a lot.
Good luck with this, Robert.
Nick
Ooops. I forgot I was exiled. N
\
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Robert Holmes
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 11:53 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Old Folks Only: Medicare & Plan F
Move to Europe?
—R
On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 11:47 AM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:
Today I had my first experience of a doctor refusing my medicare insurance.
This was particularly surprising because I have the Plan F supplement which purports to pay the difference between the Medicare schedule and the doctor's normal fee. I even offered to pay for it all myself and was refused as it's being against the law to pay for treatment while having insurance of any kind!
The best they could offer is referring me to a doctor in Los Alamos. (I think if I'm going to have to move my medical services, I'd more likely choose Abq, but I'm not sure if that indeed would be better.)
This is spooky!
Have any of us had similar experiences? I'm trying to figure out what my alternatives are.
- Get off Medicare + supplement plan and pay a great deal for standard blue cross/shield?
- Move from standard Medicare to the alternative "Advantage" plans?
- Call the doctor every week to see if she's now accepting Medicare?
- Suck it up and start looking outside of Santa Fe?
- Go find a hip doctor and ask what the best approach is!
Please let me/us know what your experiences are in this area! Yikes!
-- Owen
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
| Free forum by Nabble | Edit this page |