I am putting the last details together for the big surgery day. Stuff I want to be in order so I don't have to stress and things of more pressing nature. I even made my sister a "user manual" for our house hold, since she will be alone for a while and probably have no clue how all weird American appliances and such work... Plus Sarah's routines and so on. Just trying to figure out our TV with 400 channels and all kinds of DVRs and DVDs hooked up to it needs its own chapter!
My pre-operative testing is now set for next Tuesday, so that is all taken care of. I also made sure that the doctor and the hospital are in my insurance company's network, I don't want an expensive surprise after I get home. I also made sure that the home nursing system my doctor wants to use for my home care afterwards is covered. All check and accounted for!
Then for the big bummer. I will have a temporary ileostomy (bag on my stomach for waste) for 6-16 weeks or so. My freaking insurance company is one of the nation's very few who do NOT cover these appliances (that is what the ostomy lingo is for the supplies)!!! They consider the equipment "disposable", and for some bureaucratic reason that makes it a no no for coverage!!!
Apparently I am not the only one appalled, the United Ostomy Associations of America have been trying to put pressure on United Healthcare to include this in its coverage, but so far no luck. UH is otherwise a great company to deal with, no problems so far, and I am sick A LOT, so they probably don't like me too much ;-)
I will be getting a starter set of supplies from the hospital I am sure, and I know I can also call most of the major supply manufacturers for plentiful free samples. But the stuff is REALLY expensive! So that is a very expensive bummer... I am talking hundreds of dollars. Sigh!
5 comments:
I know in the Uk things like operations take longer to arrange but at least its all free and in many area's the service pretty reasonable. You really get punished in this country for being ill!
It's crazy that those little bags aren't covered. How expensive can they be for goodness sake?!!
Just the little thing that holds the bags in place can run $100 for a pack...
Vad jobbigt att behöva lägga en massa pengar på sådant. Låter inte kul alls. Annars låter det som du har läget under kontroll och är väl förberedd på det mesta. Jag tror säkert att din syster kommer att uppskatta din omtänksamhet och lite user-manuals.
Men oj, så DYRT med stomimaterial!!! Här hemma i Sverige får man det ju som hjälpmedel!
VAR får du köpa sånt material? Är lite nyfiken, då jag jobbar som sköterska :)
De flesta har ju försäkringsbolag so täcker minst 80 % av kostnaden, så det är lite trist! Materialen köps oftast genom apotek, eller billigare, genom Internet/katalog-baserade företag som specialiserar sig i hjälpmedel såsom dessa. Jag hoppas på att få en hög med gratismaterial på sjukhuset med mig hem, sedan får man väl se vart det är billigast. Mitt vanliga apotek verkar inte ha några, så det blir nog att beställa via nätet.
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