a quickie

Upon discharge Evil Doc told us to stay and get two follow-up appointments in the outpatient clinic as part of Tad's care. They wanted to monitor Tad in case something went wrong with his line (the tubes coming out of his chest) and to give him blood parts if the leukemia eats too much of his own blood.

This was good news to me since it gave me time to find a cheaper flight and worked nicely with my secret plan to get Tad to finally meet Good Doc and hear firsthand what he is proposing as a treatment. After all that was the reason we had flown to Seatlle.

What no one mentioned is that the follow-up care in the outpatient clinic would no longer be "urgent" and thus not covered by both insurances. At the end of the day yesterday a woman from the clinic called me to tell me that the 20% out-of-pocket cost for one follow-up appointment would be somewhere between $600 and $1000.

(I must admit I was surprised to hear Evil Doc tell me: "I'll call you back later and let you know how much that will cost". My experience is that docs don't like to talk/hear about money - sorta like Club Med where you get tokens to buy everything.)

I told the budget watchdog woman that Tad and I couldn't afford this and finished with the phrase she didn't want to hear: "Thank you very much - when he starts to get sick we'll just go to the Emergency Room. Have a good evening."

I felt like I had been hit in the stomach. Ironically the woman in question was the one who had told me six months ago to not bother coming to Washington unless I had several hundred thousand dollars cash in hand. I got great pleasure from hanging up on her.

Two minutes later the nurse who works for Good Doc called me. She too had been made aware of the financial situation and was doing her homework. She just wanted me to know that Good Doc had agreed to waive his fee for the consultation with Tad if we could stay til Wednesday when he would be back in town and he was willing to write a minimalist lab order with only the necessities in order to lessen our costs.

Can't imagine why I walk away feeling like shit when I speak to one guy and walk away feeling so serene when I speak to the other.