Originally Posted By SingleParkPassholder "What did you have done, SPP?" Well, I had a torn meniscus, which had been there for some time, and that resulted in a stress fracture in my right knee. My surgery lasted about an hour Thursday morning. They removed the torn part of the meniscus, because a meniscus can't be repaired, just removed, and also drilled two holes in the dead part of my bone where the fracture is. By drilling, they hope to stimulate blood flow and help it regenerate and heal. My first follow up appointment is tomorrow morning, when they'll remove stitches and let me finally take off the dressing and the circulation sleeve I've had on since the surgery. With this white hosiery on, I feel like I should put on some buckled shoes and warn people the British are coming. This all started a week before Thanksgiving. We were supposed to go to Chicago for Thanksgiving, so I put up our outside Christmas lights before then. I made a couple of hundred trips up and down a ladder. The knee hurt a lot at the end of the day, but I figured it would go away. We had a lot of other stuff going on, the death of a family friend, my mother in law went into the hospital, a few other things, so I just took glucosamine and hoped for the best. The pain didn't go away, so I made an appointment with my G.P. in early December. He didn't think much of it, but said if it persists, to go see an orthpaedist. It didn't go away, so around 12/20/11 I made an appointment and the soonest I could get was 1/6/12. I went, and he ordered an MRI. That required approval from Blue Cross. I requested an open MRI, because I found out last time I had one I was too wide for a regular one and when they try to cram me in there, I got very claustrophobic. Even though they only wanted to look at my knee, you're in an MRI up to your armpits. So I waited a week for the approval, took a lot of Advil, and when I got to the MRI place, found out Blue Cross would only approve a regular MRI. The rationale told to me by them was "it's only for 20 minutes", you'll just have to go through it. Well, I tried to do that, but after less than 10 minutes, the Tech and I decided I needed an open MRI. I fidgeted, I moved, they got nothing useful, since I was crammed in the machine. I have a 54 inch chest and very wide shoulders, and it just wasn't happening for me. Luckily, from my experiences getting an MRI several years ago for vertigo problems, I knew of another open MRI place. My doctor's office simply called Blue Cross, told them it was a medical necessity, and that they could verify I don't fit. So, I got my open MRI. Earlier, I mentioned my surgery took an hour. Filling out all the forms and going through all the rigmarole required by insurance to have surgery literally took five hours a few days before surgery. I signed the same, identical consent form six different times. After surgery, my doctor recommended a cooling machine to attach to my knee to help circulate the blood. Here's where it gets tricky. I buy Kaiser through my employer so my wife can use it because she loves it. I don't love Kaiser. She buys me Blue Cross so I can pick my own doctor. We're both secondary on each other's policies. Since I did all this with Blue Cross, but because Kaiser is my primary, Blue Cross insisted on billing Kaiser for everything I had done because they are my primary. Because I didn't use Kaiser for this, they of course denied everything. Since Kaiser declined to pay for this cooling machine, Blue Cross said they weren't either because they can choose to impose Kaiser's standards on themselves and therefore deny coverage. That made no sense. I asked why didn't they deny coverage for the surgery or the MRI? No answer for that, but they were going to deny the cooling machine. Use ice packs, I was told. So yesterday, I got a call from my doctor saying they've billed Blue Cross for the surgery, but Blue Cross punted the whole thing to Kaiser, and if they don't get payment from somebody in 30 days they'll be billing me. And on it goes.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Single payer, single payer, single payer. Hope you're feeling better soon, SPP!
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <Associated Press reports that Karen Handel has now resigned from Susan/ G. Komen for the Cure.> ...with the oh-so-typical "I did nothing wrong" non-apology that actually blames other people for "making it political." (!)
Originally Posted By vbdad55 the fact that something like fighting cancer cannot remain apolitcal tells me how far we've sunk on a societal basis
Originally Posted By mrkthompsn Ladies. Call your local Planned Parenthood office today. Schedule a mammogram. Let me know if any of them.... ANY of them... do not say "uhhhhh, we don't do mammograms, but we can refer you to someone who does." All Komen (and Handel) tried to do was make the most efficient use of their donated funding. Why fund an institution that doesn't perform the service and only refers you to another instition? Does the act of referring need cash?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 You're drinking the koolaid. PP's primary service was not mammograms per se, but a). examinations to see if a mammogram is warranted. Women can do these self-exams, but most are not expert enough to know if what they find is cause for concern or not. The people at PP have seen thousands of women and are much more likely to know if the woman in question has anything to be concerned about. This is invaluable for low-income women who have a hard time affording doctor visits and may be inclined to say to themselves "oh, it's nothing." b). If they find something, PP can then refer the women for low or no-cost mammograms, that would not be available without that initial screening (i.e. the woman couldn't just walk in and get a no-or-low cost mammogram on her own.) <All Komen (and Handel) tried to do was make the most efficient use of their donated funding.> That's a joke. We're now learning that Komen spends far more than most charities on administration and fund raising, and far less on actual work. PP, on the other hand, has a much better record on these scores. Giving money to PP was one of the best bangs-for-the-buck Komen had.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>That's a joke. We're now learning that Komen spends far more than most charities on administration and fund raising<< This seems to be a common problem with "charities" these days, where execs are paid handsome salaries with great bennies.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 There ARE good ones, though. There are a couple of good websites that rate charities on exactly this kind of thing, so you can know how many of your dollars are going towards what you intend them to go towards.
Originally Posted By mele <<b). If they find something, PP can then refer the women for low or no-cost mammograms, that would not be available without that initial screening (i.e. the woman couldn't just walk in and get a no-or-low cost mammogram on her own.)>> THIS.
Originally Posted By ecdc >>There are a couple of good websites that rate charities on exactly this kind of thing<< Link? I'd love to see this to make sure my money goes to the right place....
