All About G

Because Bassett is full of shit. Bullshit, in fact.

Bassett has a hell of a lot of nerve saying that they’re a reliable health care service. Ha! All they really care about is making as much money as they can; they don’t care about what the patient wants. They only want the patient to be obedient and do whatever they say.

Anyway, I’ve completely lost all respect for Kelly, the doctor who was supposed to set me up with a referral to the orthopedic in Buffalo. I take back everything I said about her being “willing to help me.”

When I had gone to see her on Wednesday… well a couple of weeks ago, I had asked if she could refer me out to the Dr. Bisson in Buffalo, because I felt that someone who had published research on clavicle osteonomies would definitely know what he was doing, and I wanted to be positively sure that the surgeon who was going to operate on me wasn’t going to kill me for not knowing what he was doing.

A couple of days later, my mom called me to let me know that Kelly had received the medical information from Ithaca Orthopedic Group. The message passed to me was “Kelly wants to refer you to one of the Bassett orthopedics in Oneonta but if you want to be referred out to the orthopedic in Buffalo, she’ll see what she can do.”

So I had given their office a call, letting them know “I would like to be referred to the orthopedic in Buffalo, kthnkbai.” And they seemed perfectly fine with it, though Barbara had said “Kelly would really like for you to see one of the orthopedics in Oneonta first,” but I made it very clear that they weren’t needed. So they said that they’d work on getting the referral for me.

Anyway, on Friday, I was awoken my a call on my cell phone. This time, it was Connie, one of Kelly’s nurses. She told me that Kelly “couldn’t refer me out to Buffalo because it was out of her network, buuuuuut she could still refer me to one of the orthopedics at the Bassett center in Oneonta.”

At the time, I told her I’d “get back to her later.”

Earlier today, mom called up GHI inquiring about the network. And, as I thought before, it’s statewide. Nothing is stopping Kelly from making that referral, because Dr. Bisson IS in the GHI network. So, after I found out this info, I called the office once again. Barbara was the one who answered the phone, and the conversation went as thus:

“Hi, I’m Regina Baker. I was called a couple of days ago about the referral to Buffalo.”

“Okay, hold on one moment.”

*on hold*

“Hello Regina? Connie’s not available right now.”

“That’s okay. Anyway, I was told by Connie that Kelly couldn’t make the referral because it was out of her network. But I made a call to GHI today and I was told that I can be referred to anyone in the state who takes GHI. So… can Kelly refer me out to the doctor in Buffalo, please?”

“Kelly left a message saying that she wasn’t comfortable with that referral.”

“… Is that so.”

“She’s had a lot of success with referrals to the orthopedics in Bassett’s Oneonta Center.”

“Yea, but those doctors can’t help me. The reason why I wanted to be referred to the doctor in Buffalo is because he can help me.”

“Kelly isn’t willing to make a referral out to that doctor.”

“Really. And, if you don’t mind me asking, why is that?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. But if you’d like, I can leave a message for her to see if she’ll make the referral anyway.”

“Yes, you go do that. Thank you.”

“Bye.”

*hangs up without responding*

That stupid bitch Kelly isn’t willing to make that SIMPLE referral, because Dr. Bisson isn’t in the Bassett network, therefore Bassett won’t be making any money. So she’d rather send me to a useless orthopedic just so the company can leech more insurance money from me. She’d rather make more money than help me fix my problem. And all she needs to do is fill out ONE STINKING REFERRAL, and send it to Dr. Bisson! And schedule me an appointment! And how do I know that’s the reason? Not just because of other experiences our family has had with stupid Bassett doctors, but because the specific quote “Kelly isn’t willing to refer you out to Buffalo.” and how they kept pushing to get me to go to the stupid Oneonta center to see their doctors who won’t be able to do SHIT!

Fuck you! I’m not going to let you pull me away from where I know I’m going to go. I don’t give two craps if you’d rather I see your orthopedics. I’M NOT GONNA GO SEE ‘EM! I know Dr. Bisson is gonna be the best doctor who can help me, and so I’m gonna go see him, and if you aren’t going to give me that simple referral, then I’m gonna find someone who will!

And already, I’ve found a local doctor who owns a private practice, and is an independent. Therefore, he won’t get on my god damn case about seeing a “specific doctor” and that bullshit. I’m sure he’ll give me the referral I need, for sure. Hell, I probably can get the referral from Dr. Krauss when I got see Laurie at the Ortho Group here in Ithaca.

As for Bassett? Well, they can all go kill themselves. I’m NEVER gonna see ANY Bassett doctors for as long as I live.

Comments (3) Apr 07 2009

I’m posting two posts today, since I realized I have a lot to say. But since it’s been a while since I updated, I wanted to let you know how the medical junk is going.

It’s going well… actually, it’s currently going no where, since I’m waiting for our insurance to actually kick in before I start talking to people. So far, however, I have two prospective (I don’t think this word is even in context but whatever. It’s Monday, sue me) orthopedics on my mind that I hope I’ll be able to see one of them for my clavicle.

The first one, Dr. Toni McLauren, is a trauma/fracture specialist based in New York City. I learned about her with the help of a wonderful communications coordinator at NYU’s medical center (I didn’t know they had a med school… potential school for later on yaaaaaay), and got her contact info and everything. She even takes GHI, which is awesome, because that’s the kind of health insurance we’re about to get. Another plus is that NYU’s med center is a research hospital. Cutting edge stuff, the most up to date technology. Good stuff, indeed.

And what I like even more about Dr. McLauren is that she’s female — I never find female orthopedic surgeons, and I’ll be honest, I have a personal bias for female doctors, since 1) the majority of doctors I’ve seen are female, and 2) males doctors just seem more stupid, 3) female doctors just seem more in tune to understanding their patient’s needs and 4) Male dentists traumatize me (a little off subject, but it matters). The only downside to this is that she’s in the city. No, it has absolutely nothing to do with transportation — I’d love to go back down to the city since it’s been a while since I’ve been down there. The issue related more to the insurance company.

I’m not sure how GHI works, and more than anything I don’t know how big my ‘network’ is. I don’t know if it’s within 100 miles of where I live (that’s the only way we could search), and I don’t know if it’s more likely that I can see anyone in the state of NY without too much trouble. If it is a 100 mile radius, then I’m going to have to jump through a hell of a lot of hoops to get downstate to see McLauren.

The other doctor, who was recommended to me by an ATC on Yahoo Answers, is Dr. Leslie J. Bisson, based in the orthopedic facility at the University of Buffalo’s med school (another potential school for later yaaaaay). He’s actually done research and published studies specifically on clavicular osteonomies. And if that’s not a good sign that he’d be a good candidate for such, I don’t know what would be.

The only thing is that he’s definitely more than 100 miles away, just like McLauren is. And actually, I don’t even know if the guy takes GHI. He is a bit closer than McLauren, but not within that 100 miles radius, once again. So we’ll just have to hope that, once again, I’ll be able to jump through enough hoops to get me sent to either one of these doctors.

(Honestly, I feel like I’d be better off seeing an orthopedic who’s based in a med school, and I’m not exactly sure why, but they seem like they’re more… idk… experienced… that’s not the best word to describe it. I’m gonna assume you know what I’m talking about)

Of course, it still doesn’t solve the insurance idiot problem. But since I had a few tricks of my sleeve as well, I have the feeling that in the end, I’m gonna get my freakin’ way. After all, I know the insurance people don’t really care, but they will care if I continuously give them hell every day until they do listen to what I have to say *evil grin*.

Comments (0) Feb 23 2009

Alright, here’s the deal.

I haven’t heard from Dr. Krauss about anything, and I haven’t quite figured out everything I need to about the insurance, but at the moment, I’m trying to find a very specific thing, and I need your help.

Orthopedic surgeons do a lot, but in actuality, a lot of them are specialists. I’m looking for a orthopedic with a shoulder specialty and experience with surgical repair of clavicles. I’m already working on getting info from others who have had surgeries and such, but I would very much appreciate it if you all looked into shoulder specialists in the Northeast, preferably. Please let me know what you come up with. I want to get this treated before school ends for the summer, because my student health insurance ends at the end of the semester, so I wouldn’t have that added coverage.

And to those of you that help, thank you so much.

Comments (0) Feb 12 2009

It’s really late, but I felt like I had to tell you how my visit to Ithaca Orthopedic Group went.

I didn’t actually see an orthopedic surgeon, because I guess the universal rule is that you can never visit an orthopedic directly; you have to get referred to them by the whole world first. So I saw Dr. Krauss (hoping that’s how his name is spell) instead.

So, we started out with me telling him absolutely everything I knew about what had happened. I told him ab… oh! That reminds me. I don’t think I told you about my epiphany… well I’ll tell it to you the way I told Dr. Krauss.

Basically, this injury occurred a couple of years ago during school late March, 2007. I recall playing soccer in the gym after eating lunch, and I remember someone (I think it was Steve… knowing him like I think I do, it probably was) sandwiching me up against the wall really… lack of a word~… and after lunch period was when my clavicle was bothering me so much. Mom looked at it after school, said it was bent, and we saw the doctor the next day, and nothing got accomplished.

I told Krauss about my theory of it being a bowing fracture, and I told him about the few case studies I compared symptoms to, even if those case studies were ulnar bowing fracture. Anyway, he took a look at me, requested I get an x-ray on my spine (because he thought that I had a curve in the spine that was affecting the prominence of the deformity). He left to talk to the radiologist while I sat in the freezing exam room, pissed that he thought, of all things, that my spine was somehow part of the problem.

Anywho, he came back, and told me I had slight curvature (and honestly, who doesn’t? No one’s perfect), but it probably wasn’t affecting the clavicle all that much.

The good news; he told me, straight up, that he believed my self-diagnosis was absolutely correct, and he gave me a couple of tips to look for case studies that relate to the clavicle so I could better compare (you’ll see why in a minute). The bad news; since it’s been two years since the incident, putting an amazing amount of pressure on the bone just isn’t going to work. I’m going to need to get an osteotomy if I want to fix this clavicle. And guess what, folks! That’s not all.

Surgery on the clavicle takes a specialist, and I mean a specialist. This means, that if I get the surgery done, I may very well have to travel to NYC, or even Boston, to get this treated. That’s pretty expensive traveling wise, so most likely I’d be going by myself (and that’s gonna be scary as hell). Another potential problem is cost. I’ll need to get a CAT scan, among other things, and I know that while insurance helps pay for a good chunk of the cost, my clavicle could very well be classified a “pre-existing condition” and they won’t help pay for treatment. Maybe we ca find a loophole in that… who knows?

So right now, I’m waiting to hear about the situation regarding our health insurance before I figure out if I’ll be able to go through with it. And once I’ve done that, I’ve got a hell of a lot of research to do. I have to thank Krauss, though. He told me he’d look into clavicle specialists and help out with researching the treatment of a “plastic deformation clavicle fx” (fx = fracture). Those were the Google terms he gave me. So hey, I think you all should help research too. The search terms are in the quotation marks earlier in this paragraph. You’ll learn a thing or two. I know I’ve learned a shit load since I started on this little and tedious expedition.

But there you have it. To the stupid doctors: I. Fucking. Told. You. So. What the fuck now, BITCH! In the meantime, I’m not giving up on getting treatment — if there’s a will there’s a way. Just because I might have to travel a few hours doesn’t mean I’m not going to get it done.

And while Krauss was telling me “Well, I wouldn’t let my daughter go through with it, just because it’s a very delicate operation” — you need to do everything EXACT and perfect, or you fuck up everything — “And who knows if it’ll actually get rid of the pain”, I say that, well, may be it’ll work, and may be it won’t. But we won’t know unless we try? I’m not sue-happy, if that’s what you were concerned about, Krauss. I wouldn’t sue if you messed up — I’d just make you fix the mistake. The only exception is if I die because of something directly related to the surgery/treatment. In that case, I gave my mom permission to sue on my behalf. But since they’re specialists, and they’re orthopedic surgeons, I have faith that they know what they’re doing.

I’ll keep you all posted.

Comments (0) Feb 10 2009

Well, I finally got the referral I’ve been wanting since the beginning of this whole fiasco. I go see the orthopedic on Monday after my stats class. Dr. Getzin ticked me off during my appointment today by saying that I might be misinformed about the plastic bowed fracture info (because he apparently thinks that I don’t know how to research and find valid sites… idiot. I’m only in college and taught how to do proper research by every effing class every effing semester… that kind of thing kinda sticks in your head after so many repetitions), and he kept emphasizing that it’s not an emergency (uh, duh, I knew that. if it was, don’t you think this would’ve been resolved around two years ago when it actually happened?), and that he wants me to be comfortable. He even said that if it came down to it, I may just have to deal with the discomfort for the rest of my life. Talk about discouraging!

So the first thing I want to say is, no one seems to want to listen to me when I want to tell them what it is that I want. Maybe it’s because I’m not like most patients. See, every one I’ve been to wants to just eliminate the pain and discomfort for me. I don’t want to eliminate the pain; I want to fix the bend in my bone. The bend is what bothers me more than anything, and call me immature, I don’t care, but I will get it reset, even if it takes me across the country to an orthopedic that will actually do it. And maybe that makes me weird; I don’t want to make this “easy” for me. I want the corrective/surgical procedure done. I’m more than willing to let them operate on me, do whatever they need to do to get rid of it. I want to get rid of the bend.

Is it that patients want to make things as easy as possible for themselves, or is it that doctors are too afraid to do more… what’s the word… “aggressive” treatments? Do they think every patient is like that? Wimpy? And I sorta wonder what I’m gonna be met with when I meet the orthopedic on Monday. I wonder what he’ll say or do when I tell him my theory. And I wonder what he’ll say or do when I tell him exactly what I want. Will I be able to find a doctor who’ll be willing to correct the bend? Who knows? Will they even believe me when I tell them? I mean, I’ve already told Getzin, and the PTs “I know the pain’s annoying and all, but I just really want to get rid of this bend here.” And it sorta seemed like they were brushing it off… I don’t know. I just hope that I won’t need to go looking for anyone else after talking to this next guy. I hope that he’ll listen, and I hope I’ll be able to get it through to him that I want him to break and reset my clavicle.

Who knows? Anyone have any opinions? I suppose only time will tell. In the meantime, I’ll keep everyone posted.

Comments (3) Feb 03 2009