United HealthCare Doesn't Care about Cancer Patients (Part 2)

...and the battle continues....made a teeny weeny amount of headway today.

I got the Office of the Patient Advocate of CT involved and she and I both called the head of HR at T's employer's corporate office, he got his staff involved and we got a big-shot at UHC care involved.

I got....completed...... and scanned a ton of documents and emailed them all over the place, and tomorrow I'm going to Staples so I can fax a questionnaire to all of  T's doctors asking them to complete it, fax it to the big shot at UHC and then mail it to the regular PO Box Addy on the form.

...then I will let the HealthCare Advocate, and everyone else I got involved know that I did that...

....then I will hold my breath and hope they pay the damn bills!!!!!

I am beyond disgusted with United HealthCare. They KNOW this is not pre-existing, and still they try and get away with not paying.

I feel helpless.....even as I try to help my wife save her own life and get the medical care she needs to survive, UHC is trying to get away with trying to deny her this, but they have no problem taking her money for this "insurance coverage".....what coverage?

I am just beside myself.....i sit and think in a daze for hours.........helpless, hopeful, doing what little I can.

If this continues to affect her care further, I will file the biggest most public lawsuit her employer or UHC has ever seen!

Why can't they just do the right thing? Why is this a battle? Isn't finding out about the cancer and dealing with all of that enough? REALLY?!?!?

This is their last chance to do the right thing.....and they better move fast.

UnitedHealthCare Doesn't Care about Cancer Patients

I was starting to feel optimistic.....still scared, but optimistic none the less....2 chemo's to go and scans to be booked, surgery consult and set up, surgery, radiation...etc.... Inexplicably, the scans have not been ordered, I suspect the insurance company is not pre-approving them, which is required before they are booked. UNITED HEALTH CARE IS HOLDING UP THE TREATMENT OF A CANCER PATIENT WHERE TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE! 

United Health Care has not paid a single dime to our oncologist in the last 4 months, we were called into a billing office and told her treatment might have to be moved to the city hospital because although she has insurance and CANCER, they believe (I shit you not), that she got insurance knowing she had cancer in order to screw over United Health Care by making them (a medical insurance company) actually pay for someones medical bills. 

Although all our doctors have provided them with all T's past medical records and have even called to tell them, this is, in fact, is NOT a pre-existing condition, UHC say they believe that it was anyway with admittedly no documentation what-so-ever, and so will continue to hold up all her claims indefinitely, which will prevent her from getting the best medical care available which she is entitled to and has been paying for. By the way, There is no evidence of a pre-existing condition because, THIS IS NOT A PRE-EXISTING CONDITION!

How outrageous of us to expect United Health Care to pay their insureds medical bills. How dare one of their customers have the audacity to contract a life threatening disease while insured by them. United Health Care is not only not upholding their part of their contract with their insured, they are in-fact endangering her life. To call this disgraceful is the understatement of the year!

So, in addition to fighting cancer we now have to fight the insurance company in hopes that they actually do their job! 

I've got her doctor calling the insurance company again, I've contacted the insurance commissioner, the CT Labor Board, and the CT Insurance Patient advocate. I should have an official case number soon. We also have being 100% right on our side. This was NOT a pre-existing condition you f#cking morons.

I have no doubt we will win this fight, because we have right on our side, but why do we have to fight this battle at all? Isn't dealing with a life threatening cancer enough. Thanks a lot UnitedHealthCare, for nothing.

Oh and thanks for having your customer service department refuse to let me speak to a supervisor and also treat me  like a criminal when I called to inquire why T's medical insurance was not paying her medical bills!

I'm pissed and worried that these criminals will get away with this....well, let's call it what it is, a crime!

Overwhelmed

Sometimes I get so overwhelmed I just can't deal with the simplest of tasks.

Holding my girl

The heater in our apartment doesn't work again and we need to tell our landlord ASAP. Normally something like this would not stress me out too much, but with T going through cancer treatment and her immunity being compromised as a result, has me worried that we will spend yet another winter with a heater that works occasionally at best. 

That jerk my landlord hired to buy and install this heater took advantage of her, she got swindled by her "repair man" who got this non returnable heater for her...we call him Mr. Magoo. He's actually a cross between Mr. Magoo and Archie Bunker and never EVER admits he's clueless.

I hope she doesn't use him again and just chooses to buy a good heater herself from sears or where ever? They deliver, they install, and they guarantee their stuff and if something is wrong they will either fix or replace it....Mr. Magoo who is quite frankly a jack ass better not try and take advantage of her again. She and we deserve better.

T has developed a new side effect. The palms of her hands feel as if she burned them on a hot frying pan. They are tender, red, and tingle. This raises new problems. The new chemotherapy she's supposed to start in a week causes the problem she's already having with her hands, which means it could make it worse.....so off to a neurologist we go to find out exactly what is causing this side effect just to make sure.

The neurologist will determine the cause, the oncologist will then have to re-think the type of chemo she can give T....oh and that might mean chemo every single week with extra medicine to try and control the side effects. This means we also have to worry about how accommodating T's work will be with her needing treatment EVERY week.

If that's not enough, we are seeing the surgeon next Thursday late in the afternoon to decide if it's time for surgery yet. If it is, we have to pray her work will accommodate us being as they are not allowing her to even apply for FMLA until November (because she qualified months ago but missed the 5 day window to sign up that they never told her about).....so will she have a job and keep her insurance or not? 

I don't want to put off her surgery until she can sign up for FMLA, if they don’t accommodate us, I'm gonna be pissed....sooooo worried about that.

All this is preventing me from enjoying the bit of happy news we got which is that the chemo is working. The tumors are smaller.....even the nodes in her lungs which we don't know if they are cancer or not have shrunk, SOME of the lymph nodes even disappeared......what the doctors are doing is working, and I don't want T's f#cking job to interfere with that, even though the doctors will work with us either way....

I want to be happy, cry out of frustration, and scream all at once to express a dozen conflicting emotions at once.

This all hit me at once and......I just shut down for a few hours to get my sh!t together before I could do anything.....sounds stupid......silly even.....but I just couldn't deal. My world is out of control and that's really hard for someone like me who tries to think of every possible scenario so I can have a plan for each and every one.

I just want to do some fun things with my girl as much as possible to help us both get through this. She's a tough cookie, my girl......stronger then she thinks she is and while I fear EVERYTHING, I long for the day we can look back on all this as a distant memory.

OMFG!!!!!

Went to the pharmacy to pick up some medicine for T's 1st chemotherapy and almost fainted when they told me the price.

...are you sitting down....

$356.40 for THREE PILLS!.....I sh!t you not......and then I found out she has to take this medication with EVERY chemo. treatment! (((THUD!)))

I found myself sobbing in the car, trying to get a grip so I could drive.

Called the doctor and asked them to call me tomorrow so I can ask for samples, if they even have them for this kinda drug.

Then a moment of WHEW! I looked up T's benefits and discovered there is an out of pocket max for non-covered and covered drugs.......WHEW!!!

All these emotions from what was to be a quick stop at the pharmacy on my way to the supermarket.....I feel like I ran a marathon.

I keep telling myself everything is going to be o.k., but I find myself on an emotional roller coaster 24/7

Going Over Your Head Mother F-cker!

Going over the heads of the evil local management who was not only UN-helpful to my girl, but actively tried to screw her over....and threatened to fire her if she missed too many days of work for chemotherapy, etc...ACTUALLY WORKED! (Thanks T.P. for the advice)

I spoke to corporate and explained how she was being screwed out of FMLA, Short Term Disability, and Long Term Disability even though she qualified for both MONTHS ago, and that they were preventing a cancer patient from getting treatment that could save her life and threatening her job due to her illness.

I didn't threaten to file a lawsuit, I just literally begged for his help, but I'm sure THAT was a big motivation.

I even explained that a very small scheduling change could make it possible for my girl to work through her chemotherapy and reserve her Short term Disability for surgery and radiation in aprox. 6 months when she will need it.

The corporate guy, who was an angel (whatever his motivation) assured me she would be taken care of.

Well, I've never seen such a complete turn around in my entire life....suddenly she has job and insurance security and they will honor a 4 day work week for her during treatment (for which we provided a doctor's note), and if she needs extra days off, all she needs to do is let them know and she can have them and need not worry about loosing her job or ins. due to dipping below 30 hours.

I don't think this will make her HR person who SHOULD have called corporate herself and arraigned for all this as that is what HR is supposed to do will be too happy about this, but F#CK HER and the horse she rode in on!!!

We have soooo much to worry about, at least now we don't have to worry about her job or her insurance too anymore.

WHEW!!!!!!!!