This diary is long, painful and personal. It's about Melody Townsel, one of our own.
It's about a near fatal traffic accident. It's about the tragic state of the American health care system which allows insurance companies to stand between and block health care for you, for me and for Melody Townsel.
If you can't bear any more of these health care atrocity stories, I understand and so will Melody. But you should know that what Melody describes could be your reality or mine. And be assured, it is happening countless times to American citizens across this country. Every. Single. Day.
If all this is too demoralizing, then I suggest you stop reading right now.
I receive lots of health care horror stories. I have one diary a day and I try and write about issues that impact many people. I think this should be a warning to everyone.
Melody's situation is sadly far from unique. In fact it is commonplace in America the richest country on the planet.
Keep in mind as you read this that the system is rotten to the core. Even if you have insurance, we all know that it is becoming more and more worthless with every passing day.
What good is insurance, when these predatory monsters can legally deny you lifesaving medications, diagnostic tests and medical treatment?
We can learn a valuable lesson from her. We can also vow to change this deplorable situation.
This is the first email Melody sent me:
Hello, Eve:
Interested in collaborating on a diary? I've just been released from Parkland Hospital after surgery in the wake of a horrific traffic accident, and I'm livid. I had a write a $3,000 check to even be scheduled for surgery. I'm still in much pain, will be on crutches for 12 weeks, and am now hurting financially even more. Thought my story and your healthcare diary experience might make for an interesting collaboration.
Just let me know...
It only gets worse, dear Kossacks. The poor woman was in a ghastly traffic accident.
This is what she wrote to me:
Upon leaving a new-business meeting in Dallas on Thursday, 20 July, I entered the southbound Dallas Tollway at about 2:50 p.m. Shortly after getting into the middle lane of the tollway, I had a massive wreck.
I remember seeing a parked tow truck and a metallic blue-green pick-up ahead of me, and I remember thinking "this isn't going to be good." I was right.
I came to 30 minutes later behind what was left of the steering wheel of my car, covered in blood and disoriented. Four vehicles were involved in the crash, which was caused by the tow truck driver, who pulled up and stopped in the traffic lane of the tollway with no warning. As it turns out, only he and I had car insurance - the 2006 black Mercedes wasn't covered, and the pickup with which my car collided wasn't covered.
The wreck effectively shut down traffic on the tollway for the better part of the afternoon. I've had several friends tell me that they were stuck in the traffic jam, unaware that I was at the front of the wreck.
In one respect Melody was lucky, there was a doctor by her side.
can still remember the face of the neurosurgical resident who talked to me and kept me awake at the scene when, for a brief moment after calling my mother to tell her I was going to be transported to Parkland, I thought my six-year-old might have been in the car with me. Based on the state of my car and the position of my seat, it was clear from the look on his face that he thought he was looking for a dead child. He turned pale, and I panicked. When I remembered with prompting that she was at the Little Gym, we both started crying.
The EMS workers at the scene tried to open the left door of my car or, to be precise, open what was left of the door. When, in the end, they couldn't, they asked me to pull myself over to the right side of the car. That's when I realized that I had done some serious damage to my left leg. It took a while, but I was finally able to drag myself over to the right-hand side of the car, slicing up my elbows on the broken glass littering the car in the process.
We waited another 30 minutes, me sitting in the passenger side of my car, which was now facing northbound on the southbound tollway, resting against the western concrete wall of the tollway. My steering wheel and drive column were bent up and to the left, the dash folded like an accordion, both airbags had deployed and the engine block and most of the front end had been crushed forward, along with my left leg. The neurosurgical resident talked to me, keeping me awake.
She arrived at Parkland. Then the shit really hit the fan. But this is America, is anyone surprised?
Did someone say insurance?
I was transported to Dallas' Parkland Hospital and immediately taken to the ER. As they cut my bloody clothing off of me, I started crying again. Most of the rest of the night is a blur. My mother arrived with my six-year-old in tow. Thank God she didn't see all the blood. By then, they had cleaned me up a bunch.
By the end of the night, I had had several rounds of x-rays on my leg, a CT scan, an MRI, another CT scan, and a series of x-rays on my back. The general assessment was that my abdomen, which felt like it was on fire, had likely hit the steering wheel. The ankle and my abdomen were the biggest worries.
At some point in the evening, their admissions team came to see me. Was I insured? Yes. Where were my insurance cards? By then, Parkland had taken all of my money and credit cards out of my wallet, placed everything in little plastic biohazard bags, inventoried my possessions, and given them to my family for safekeeping. My parents had taken my daughter to dinner and were making arrangements for people to keep her. Cell-phone service was limited.
Repeat after me:
Pay up or roll the fuck over and die.
It took the better part of three hours to find my parents, prove I had insurance, and finally be admitted to the hospital. It was obvious that, had I not had insurance, I would have been sent home. As I laid naked on an ER table with a sheet partially draping me, I couldn't believe that those two laminated cards were standing between me, the nursing staff and the comfort of a more forgiving hospital bed. When the cards were produced by my stepfather, the gates were opened. But for only one night.
Turns out, although I'm self-insured under two policies - one a catastrophic policy, one a general doctor's office/prescription policy - Parkland had taken the information on only my secondary, doctor's office policy. I was released at day-end Friday, and asked to return to their outpatient clinic for a cast on my leg in two weeks. I had a plaster-and-bandage splint. As it turns out, it appears the assumption was that I had no insurance beyond the secondary policy, even though that card was produced. When my initial day of observation was up, I was streeted.
Let me walk you through this. I had a lengthy conversation with Melody. It is clear--beyond clear, that she was essentially receiving second-rate, dare I say she was even being terribly undertreated because the hospital believed she lacked adequate insurance coverage.
Moving right along. Melody was discharged from Parkland. By the way, she told me in our conversation that the insurance company refused to approve the walker so she had to sign that she would pay for it!
With a walker, which was the doctor's preference in my situation. Turns out that my insurance doesn't cover DME, or durable medical equipment. A social worker took a look at my case, approved that I receive one and gave me a walker with the understanding that the cost would be my responsibility to pay off on an installment plan along with my other charges not covered by insurance. Lucky me.
In pain, I hobbled through the weekend with the help of friends and family, and called a surgeon for an appointment on Monday. When he saw me on Wednesday morning, he looked at my films and scheduled me for surgery for the next day. Had I waited, per Parkland's original instructions, for another 10 days or so, I don't think my end result would have been as optimal as it may turn out. (I've got another 12 weeks of non-weight-bearing status and then recovery facing me.)
How much more can you stand? Stay with us, please. Remember it all comes down to money$$$$$. Poor us. Poor America. Poor Melody.
Before we'll treat you, write us a check!
I was promptly sent back across the skyway to Parkland for pre-admittance for surgery, with the understanding that I would arrive early the next morning, have the surgery and stay the next night. Turns out, my ankle and lower leg needed several plates and screws to hold the bones together.
When I arrived at Parkland's pre-admitting department, my first stop of the day was the financial counselor. She took my two insurance cards and sent me back to the waiting room. She pulled my records, realized my bills were standing at close to $10K from the first round of trauma testing and initial admission alone. After examining my policies at length, it became clear that my catastrophic policy had a deductible of $3000 per admittance. She was taking the view that this would be deemed a second admittance. Her opening and closing position? I needed to write her a check for $3,000 on the spot. Without it, no surgery the next day.
I cried, asked her to re-read the policy. Nope. $3K it needed to be. My friend, who had helped me, offered to write a check out of savings. I initially turned her down, still believing there must be some kind of mistake.
There was no mistake, dear friends. This is America. Obviously, I'm not a doctor, but my mother broke her ankle several years ago and also needed surgery, screws, the works. I learned then that a broken ankle is not something to fuck around with. If it is not properly set, treated, whatever--profound complications can ensue.
There is no question that Melody was initially discharged, or as she says, streeted the day after the accident with only a cast, because the hospital was fixated only on the insurance/financial end of things, not her well being.
I'm a single mother of a six-year-old, working for myself. I had insurance. I got out alive. I'm lucky. I have family and friends supplying me with meals for the short term. My face is clearing up - I no longer look like I've done eight rounds with Rocky Balboa. Bruised still, with an ugly cut across the bridge of my nose, but I don't scare people anymore.
My jaw is off center, and I haven't begun to look into getting that fixed. My bite is funny now - I can't tear the corner of my kid's cereal packet with my teeth for some reason. My angle is wrapped and propped at all times for now. The pain is constant. I'm hoping that goes away over the next two weeks.
But I have to admit that I'm angry, deep in my bones. Angry at the fact that those two insurance cards were the price of entry into one of the nation's leading trauma hospitals. Angry that I clearly needed surgery but would have been given a cast had I not been able to pull together $3K. Angry that insurance and finances is driving the bus in just about every part of my life.
We are all Melody Townsel. Every one of us. Her nightmare is our nightmare. It should be deeply distressing to every person reading this the contrast she draws between the health care she received as an American citizen overseas from what she was denied in our own country.
I can't help but contrast this with the last time I had broken bones in my leg (yes, the same leg, sad to say). This time, I fell in Kazakstan and was care-flighted to Helsinki, Finland. While there, I was treated like gold. The subject of money never came up. When I raised it, I was told not to worry. In the end, my transportation to and from Finland was paid by my company's medivac insurance provider. My surgery on multiple visits to Helsinki's Toolo Hospital? Handled by national care. If my insurance kicked in at all, I was never made aware of it.
I was never subjected to a discussion about the lack of coverage of DME - they simply handed over crutches, a walker and a wheelchair. I was never made to feel like a burden - they simply admitted me, took great care of me and did everything they could to make me feel welcome and comfortable as a woman alone in her early 30s in a foreign country.
So. I'm in pain. I'm broke. And I'm angry.
And I'm asking my Republican friends who oppose a national health system why? Why? How can this crappy system we have be better? How can my draining my bank accounts to cover the cost of needed surgery be better? How can any of this be good for anybody in the long run.
Why?
She deserves answers, so do we.