 |
| Quack quack! |
Over the last few months I had a few opportunities to overhear people talking about their experiences with the medical industry, government health insurance, retirement, and with the care of elderly people. What I took from it was this:
Sometimes doctors will order a procedure or test you don't need in order to bill Medicare or Medicaid or your insurance. Medicare/Medicaid is like free money to them. Whatever reason they might have for them, just use your common sense and question the fancy procedures.
Sometimes the procedure or test won't be covered by your government insurance and you will find you are the recipient of a very high hospital bill for something that was really unnecessary.
If you find yourself getting a giant medical bill for something and you have gov't. health insurance, write a letter to the health care provider and ask that they re-submit the claim. Or you can also try to dispute the bill, and say the procedure was unnecessary. Sometimes the admissibility of the claim has to do with how they submit it or what they call it.
I heard one tale of a doctor submitting a claim to insurance, claiming that the patient was a "new patient". The patient had been going to that doctor for 5 years. Somehow this caused the patient to get an enormous bill, although I am not sure why. They disputed the "new patient" part of the bill and it went away.
Nursing Home Libels Loved One
One crappy nursing home in Florida AS A STANDARD BUSINESS PRACTICE would submit complaints to Health and Human Services about any people who had POA (power of attorney) over any elderly people who decided to move out of their facility into another one. They would allege the POA was stealing from the elderly person and had transferred them against their will.
The investigator who was sent to check out the nursing home's complaint told the person with POA in this particular case that in about half of their other cases, innocent or not, the POA's had not kept sufficient records of where the money went.
So if you are going to get POA over another person who is in a nursing home, KEEP EVERY DARN RECEIPT NO MATTER HOW SMALL AND EVERY PIECE OF CORRESPONDENCE, BANK STATEMENT, ETC. I would guess that anyone who has been screwed in this manner by a nursing home might have a cause of action if they have kept good records and come out clean themselves. They might even be able to assemble a class action suit.
If you are elderly, foreign with weak English, too timid, or otherwise seem like you can be pushed around, you may find yourself in the unnecessary medical procedure predicament often. Also if you are watching out for an elderly, frail loved one, you will want to watch for this on their behalf.
More advice:
If you injure yourself just slightly, like you fall down and get a scrape, and you think you might heal on your own, and you are on Medicare or Medicaid, avoid going to the hospital. Use your common sense about this one. They might order up a test you don't need, just for a scrape.
Never tell a medical professional about a suicide attempt you may have made long ago in the past. They will put you on a suicide watch even though you are fine now. Suicide watch means they take away your clothes, your stuff, and your phone, put you in a hospital gown, and put you in a hospital bed in a room with someone watching you for a couple days. You aren't allowed to leave, and in some cases, even call anyone. And all for basically no good reason, if it was ancient history to begin with.
If they put you on a new medicine and you start to feel worse, and you don't think it will be life threatening to do so, try stopping it for a bit and see if you feel better. To me this is a no brainer. But too often, the patient then gets prescribed yet another drug to combat the side effects of the first drug. Sometimes the cure becomes worse than the problem.
When someone gets on Medicaid because they've used up all their money, and they are in a nursing home, they only get like $51 a month for an allowance. The adult diapers you can get thru Medicaid suck! And $51 a month is not enough to buy the good ones. (I got this one from a nursing home nurse). Here are some causes of adult incontinence: infection, pregnancy, meds like diuretics or sleeping pills, prostate problems, inflammation of the bladder, drinking of alcohol, weakening of muscles due to menopause and lack of estrogen (?), dementia.
I know two people who got MERSA in the hospital. The cost of MERSA medicine is enormous. One course of the meds is over $1,000.
Moral of the story: don't let yourself get sick in the first place. Keep your fitness up but not to the point of getting a sports injury. Don't smoke, don't drink in excess, drink enough water, don't get fat, try to eat lots of fruit and vegetables and whole grains, etc. And avoid hospitals if you can. Note I didn't say avoid the doctor altogether. Or the dentist. Bad teeth can kill you, literally. Just take care of things when they're still manageable, when they're maintenance instead of surgery.
P.S.
If you know an elderly person who lives alone and they will let you, LOOK IN ON THEM every once in a while and make sure they are doing OK. Sometimes old people will put up with things in their house that are broken but easily fixed, because they don't want to be a bother. With a very little amount of effort you can be super useful to someone. Example, furnace that just needs a tuneup or inexpensive part, tripped breaker in the basement, mice and bugs, broken window (new pane and glazing is cheap, but might require someone to stand on a ladder), etc. etc. Also, if you can, look in their fridge, make sure it works right, look under their sinks and make sure they're not leaking, all that stuff. People with bad eyesight or who have no energy might not notice these little things.
