Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2004. Classic Mattie.... as he never went anywhere without his sippy cup. Filled with MILK! So much for milk being good for the bones. It did not help Mattie's bones in any way. In any case, I clearly snapped a photo of Mattie walking around our home with Peter's ball cap on and I can tell just by looking at Mattie's facial expression that he was multi-tasking and did not have time for my picture taking.
Quote of the day: I should start naming my kidney stones like they do hurricanes. ~ unknown
I tried to explain on Wednesday's blog my frustration. Frustration I had from dealing with the hospital regarding my kidney stones. I mentioned my feelings to a friend, a friend who has been advocating for childhood cancer for over twenty years. In any case, she did not like what I was reporting to her, and she confirmed I had every reason to be upset, bordering on angry.
I have been sitting with these feelings and then today it dawned on me.... why not write to patient advocacy at the hospital? I can't tell you how many times I called these advocates in to intercede when Mattie was in the hospital. These folks are well trained, listen, ask intelligent questions and then evoke change. In fact, I remember it got to the point where I would tell a medical provider that I was not happy with their treatment of Mattie and that I was going to call patient advocacy on them. Just the notion of patient advocacy being involved made people jump and they took me seriously.
Patient advocates are employed by the hospital to truly listen and manage the issues and needs that arise for patients and families while undergoing medical treatment. I assure you there are a ton of issues that arise and most of them revolve around POOR communication between providers or providers to patients.
Given that we are donors at the Hospital, I naturally know who heads up patient advocacy. I wrote the following letter today and sent it to my contact. Keep in mind I tried to remove names and other identifiers for this blog posting.
---------------------------My Letter ------------------------------
I am writing to you about a very frustrating, and in my opinion an inappropriate, experience I recently had at your Hospital, not as a donor, but as a patient. I am currently being treated by Dr. P for kidney stones. I was referred to him by my own urologist. I have been working with Dr. P since March 5th. My concerns do not involve Dr. P, but rather the Hospital staff that I have had to communicate with regarding my condition.
Due to the nature of where my kidney stones are, Dr. P scheduled tentative surgery for me on March 21, in case the stone does not progress on its own. Therefore, I have received calls from the Hospital to prepare me for the date, where to report to, the length of the surgery, and expected recovery. Then this Monday, March 11, I received a call in the afternoon. The representative I spoke to was named J, and she explained that she was calling about my surgery and was going to do an “intake.”
I think your Hospital and I have two very different ideas of the word “intake.” I was expecting more of a medical interview or more preparatory information regarding my surgery. However, what I quickly realized was that this was not a medically related call at all. If J had explained in her introduction that she was from the billing department and was going to conduct a billing intake, I would have felt better prepared for her conversation.
J focused on how I was going to pay for the part of the surgery not covered by insurance. Literally J was throwing all sorts of numbers at me, such as the price of the surgery. She was progressing through fees and deductibles so quickly, with no regard to the fact that I did not have paper near me to take notes and I did not have a copy of the cost of the breakdown of services she was quoting me. As the patient, I was clearly working at a deficit. She then asked me how I planned to pay for my deductible. I truly had no response for her because I felt like I needed more facts about my insurance plan before proceeding with how I was going to pay for this. Because of my hesitation, J started talking to me about payment plans and said that she would call me again this coming Monday to follow up.
The call was frustrating because I felt ill prepared, I did not have the facts in front of me which J had, and I did not realize we were having a billing call until she jumped right into it. Unfortunately it did not end there. Somehow my concerns about billing from that phone call were translated into my medical care. When I went for a follow up visit with Dr. P on March 13th, I was first greeted by his medical resident. Literally his resident said he “heard” that I had issues with paying for the surgery and therefore perhaps did not want to go through with it. I was absolutely stunned!!!! As I never expected my conversation with the billing department to make its way into a medical conversation, especially since I felt that instead of getting sound medical advice, I was getting advice based on whether I could pay for the surgery.
Once I explained to the resident why I hesitated with J, he understood immediately that I just wanted more specifics from my insurance plan, but that I could pay for the surgery. Yet I felt judged by the billing department and in the initial conversation with the resident. I would like to think that your Hospital does not pick and choose who will get services or the quality of services based on how much they can afford. This was never my experience before with the Hospital. As you know we have a long-standing relationship with the Hospital as Mattie was treated for Osteosarcoma for 14 months and died at your Hospital. I have great compassion for those members of our community who are unable to pay for their medical care, and now truly understand how they must feel, as I was treated like that this week.
So just to recap, my issues are the following: 1) A billing phone call is not an ‘intake.’ At the very least it should be called a billing intake, so patients understand they are going to be talking about insurance and their account. Given that patients are not working with the same facts in front of them as your billing representatives, more detailed billing information needs to be provided on the call in a methodical, clear, and better paced manner. 2) What transpired in this billing intake should not have translated down to the patient-doctor relationship. I am coming to consult with your doctors for medical care. I want them to give me sound medical advice based on their expertise and experience, not clouded by how I plan on paying for the surgery.
Given my experience working with Julie Andrews during Mattie’s care, I know the benefits of patient advocacy. Therefore, I decided to write to you in hopes that these issues will be taken seriously and that future patients do not experience what I did this week. I look forward to hearing from you about this matter and I am happy to answer any additional questions. Much thanks for your time and attention.
Sincerely,
Victoria A. Sardi-Brown, PhD, LPC
Co-Founder and President
vicki@mattiemiracle.com
202-549-8036
No comments:
Post a Comment