Als not yet...

[bythesea]

I finally got to see the neuro-muscular specialist At JFK IN Edison, NJ . Thanks to all of you here on the forum there were no unpleasant suprises . He said my initial emg’s were inconclusive and that time was often the biggest indicator. He was totally cool about downplaying fears about an ALS diagnosis. He agreed that having two neurological disorders complicates things. I’ve been disabled with Cervial distonia since Oct/2002. Just so happens the last two days my legs have been like lead, could hardly walk.

He ordered up a five page prescription for blood work, which makes me worry. Now that I have Medicare and a supplemental insurer, I’ve been getting thousands of dollars in medical bills. Go figure before they would reimburse the hospital at about a quarter of what they asked for a visit and all I would end up paying was a ten dollar co-pay. Now Medicare is reimbursing them at four times that amount and I am getting giant bills.

Maybe some of you are fortunate enough to have the resources to stay at home, have them renovated for expensive motorized wheelchairs but I am increasingly of the opinion that the US government needs to screw the greedy insurance bastards. Health care should be a right not a privilege. Death panels have been in exsistence for may years. I don’t think Obama brings much hope to those with ALS. The changes for chronic, long term care aren’t even on the table. Screw the republicans, the democrats should grow a pair

[BethU]

bythesea ... You probably haven't gotten responses because you launched a political broadside, which isn't done on this forum.

But I'll address the other issues: why isn't your supplemental insurer paying these bills?

One thing I have discovered is that insurance companies negotiate with hospitals, doctors, etc. They squeeze the hell out of them.

I got an itemized bill for $3,200 for an outpatient procedure in '07, probably sent to me by mistake. The "insurance adjustment" deducted $1,280. The "contractual write off" (?!?) deducted another $1,445.85. I paid a co-pay of $50. The grand total of the $3,200 of the bill paid by insurance? $424.15. The bill was marked paid in full.

A few years ago, my husband's HMO went bankrupt a couple of days after he had an MRI. We got a bill for something like $5,000 for the procedure. Like a fool, I dipped into savings and paid it. Now I would start a correspondence along the lines of, "I'll pay you the same as Blue Cross/Aetna/Cigna, etc. pay you and not a penny more."

I saved that 2007 bill as a horrible example of how the uninsured get whacked in this country. Don't accept these bills at face value. First find out why your "supplemental" isn't supplementing, and then find out how much your medical providers are willing to discount. Pull out all the stops. I've become shameless at playing the "ALS" card.

And I'm glad your neuro thinks ALS is not likely. (And try to keep politics out of future posts. I've sinned in that direction, so I'm not throwing stones, but you'll get more feedback with less controversial posts.)

[bythesea]

Thanks for your great financial advice. I'm going to save your helpful comments.

I've been disabled for a long time but I am always surprised at how many disabled people internalize their problems, pat each other on their whatever’s

We don't live in a vacuum. Some of us have great families willing to sacrifice all, some don't have any families and some have families that dysfunctionally increase our problems.

Families don't live in vacuums either. They live in communities. Some communities have civic centers where the disabled are encouraged and state -paid for to use their facilities. Other communities confiscate their homes when we can no longer pay the taxes (or foreclose their homes)

Communities don’t live in vacuums either although in many US states, a look at their health statistics will show a wide variance between who lives and who dies.

You might call this a political broadside but the discrepancy between the have and have-nots is no where clearer then when we look at the health problems of our own society and especially the worlds.

In this country we spend hundreds of billions yearly to institutionalize, isolate and profit from the sick.

Have I said anything false? Don’t you feel a little anger? What happens when I can no longer use a computer, walk, feed and clean myself? A call to my local ALS center will make it all better. I’m not that naïve.

I don’t care if anyone responds, denial is a natural response and besides who cares when surviving each day and minutes becomes the focus of all our attention. It is not easy to express these thoughts but I don’t think this forum should close itself to these wider expressions

Sorry for my bad Karma