Patient has seizure and is brought to ER by EMS. Workup negative. Nearly out of meds and it's Saturday.
I refill patient's seizure medicine. I get a call from the pharmacist and he says...
"Doc, the patient's insurance won't pay for his tegretol, and when I explained that it was for seizures they told me... 'Well he better get that mail-in order form soon then, huh?'... I can't believe it. "
Patient, with full VA benefits, out of pocket for said medicine. I don't know what to say except why does God love us?
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
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I think the VA gets its employees from Post Office Rejects...
ReplyDeleteHow typical of the government; to turn their backs on our vets. Shameful.
ReplyDeleteInsurance companies do the same idiot thing.
ReplyDeleteCancer patient - uncontrolled vomiting despite PR phenergan, but responds very well to zofran. Try and get them a script for ODT Zofran - denied. Recurrent vomiting, 3rd ED visit - admit, requiring IV antiemetics to control vomiting.
My dad gets RA meds through the VA. Every month he goes to the local VA hospital and picks em up. Obviously, this is NOT the norm. Why do "they" have to make things so difficult?
ReplyDeleteRight - they assume people will just remember to download, print, and send in the proper forms along with the Rx. Many older people don't know how to that. Many others are too lazy to do it. Many others just decide to wait til they seize....
ReplyDeleteWell, at least he's an adult and can stand up for himself. With government rationing, it is the ones who can't who are at greatest risk.
ReplyDeleteI feel for the woman with the 22 week premie, but when there are blatant falsehoods in the article it makes it harder to do anything with the story. Her baby did NOT push himself over with his hands shortly after birth. Full-term babies don't do that. One of the comments is from someone who says he has a 34 year old niece who was a 24 week premie. I highly highly doubt that. 24 weekers have a slim slim chance now. 34 years ago 28-weekers very very rarely survived, let alone did well. Heck, 28-weeekers do poorly longterm(lifelong dependency for basics, never self-sufficient) far more often than they thrive and lead 'normal' lives. Is that OK? Well, sure. But let's not pretend this 22 weekers was going to home and doing everything normal in 2 weeks, or 2 years, or ever for that matter. With a couple of million in care, the overwhelming liklihood is that the kid dies 3 months before it was even supposed to be born.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with you that the child probably would have had an uphill battle, even with medical intervention. Also, the remark about the baby rolling himself over does not ring true ... except I am wondering if a baby who was having a seizure or something might be able to do this. Still, to simply deny the woman's request for help seems callous and inhuman. Who knows what might have happened? The two-day difference seems a petty bureaucratic sticking point when some latitude in decision making might exist.
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