I've been laughing since I got the preliminary diagnosis on August 10: brain tumor. It's just so funny to say that. Remember this?
Brain tumor. I have a brain tumor.
It cracks me up. Well, Kindergarten Cop, in this case, it is a tumor. And precisely because it's A. Big. Deal.tm to diagnose some of these things, my health insurance coverage for the year capped out three weeks before this diagnosis came in, just one month after my new insurance year began. And I ran out of FlexCare dollars sometime in August, too.
It's hilarious. I thought it was kind of weird that the doctor's office called me at 8:30 at night with this list of lab results. I was sitting in my living room, dutifully jotting down all the results as the nurse was listing them, and then suddenly I got a chill and everything around me became all blurry. What? What? What? She wasn't able to answer any of my questions. "Wait a minute. If I have A and also C and F, G, H, I, and S and T and W and Z, doesn't that mean I have TUMOR?" She said she couldn't answer that. But she did have an appointment for me to see A Brain Doctortm the next day.
It's hysterically funny. My biggest question -- which, again, she could not answer -- was this: "I have no more health-insurance coverage for this year, so everything I pay from now until the end of the year comes out of my pocket. Do you think I absolutely have to see this specialist before my new insurance year begins?" Her only response, after a long pause: "Dr. Too-Cowardly-to-Call-Me-Himself-at-8:30-P.M. believes you need to see Dr. Brain Doctor tomorrow."
Well, I really didn't feel I could make a high-stakes financial commitment that fast. So I put off the Brain Doctor appointment for a few weeks while I did some research to see whether I could afford this diagnosis, or whether I should angle for a cheaper one.
Pure comedy gold. I did the research: If I decide not to be treated, I'm probably going to die. And I've still got one child in college and a granddaughter who needs me. So last Monday morning on my way to work, I took all my credit cards to the Brain Doctor's office and laid them out on the counter in front of the staff who deal with financial issues.
"I know this is going to sound weird, but I really need your help. This is what I've got," I said. "I've got $60 left on this card, and about $95 on this one. There's also about $150 on this one, but I need most of that for gas and groceries. I know how weird this sounds, and possibly even sarcastic, but could you ask Dr. Brain Doctor if he could just take a quick look at my test results so far and other doctors' notes in my file [I have 14 other specialists, as this is a very complicated medical situation and that's why I'm insurance-broke so soon into the fiscal year] and tell me whether I have enough on my credit cards to pay for any care at all--anything whatsoever--until my new insurance year comes up? I'll have about $2,500 in January with my FlexCard, and I guess maybe some additional money by then as well. But my credit's tapped out, and I don't have a whole lot of cash. I'm going to have to earn everything I'll need to pay you, and I need to get some idea of how much I'll need to earn."
Cue the classic deer-in-the-headlights double-take. Seeing the look on the woman's face, I touched her forearm lightly and said quietly, "I know, and I'm really sorry to put you in this position. But I have to know. Here's my contact information. If you could get back to me sometime in the next day or so, I would really, really appreciate it. You have no idea how hard it is to have to ask this favor."
A few hours later, I had a call. Could I come in to talk with Dr. Brain Doctor? Twenty hours later, I had an email from a foundation that deals with patients with this diagnosis, and they were approving a request from my doctor to cover some of my medication copays. Another foundation was checking into my doctor's referral to cover my referral to a center in Maryland that is a Center of Excellence for this condition. Dr. Brain Doctor isn't charging me for office visits, and he's finding a way to get the lab charges taken care of, too.
Stop me if you've heard this joke before. This isn't a holistic answer. It's what one doctor was willing and able to do for one patient. One doctor and one patient. Times millions of needs that aren't being met, because who has time to deal with all of this on a case-by-case and doctor-by-doctor basis?
Funny, isn't it? Truth be told, the insurance companies have the time. They have the time to make it so hard for our doctors and us to resolve problems like this that this particular incident becomes a miracle story of people overcoming impossible odds.
And here's the punchline: They're making a killing at it.