I am a self-employed male that was foolish enough to use A B C B S as my health insurance provider. I was paying about $90 a month for catastrophic coverage. I think health ins. is BS, but after fracturing my clavicle and being treated like a pariah at the hospital (I’m assuming they thought since I didn’t have ins., that I couldn’t pay), I figured I better get it so that doctors would treat me like a human being. I gave B C my hard-earned money for over two years w/o incident (of course I never filed a claim either) when, all of a sudden, they cancelled my policy for no apparent reason. I’m a healthy guy. Don’t have any health problems or history of them so this surprised me. After contacting the company numerous times without ever finding out exactly why they were cancelling my policy, I contacted the state health ins. division. It turns out that
B C invented a child for me. Apparently after I (a male) had given birth to this child, I had neglected to pay for: 1. co-payment of charges for said miracle birth and 2. increased coverage rate due to the addition of my new baby. The state ins. division allowed B C to get away with this preposterous means of taking my money and running and did absolutely nothing to punish B C or prevent them from doing the same sort of thing to someone who is far less fortunate than I.
The lesson I learned from all this is that health insurance is wothless and a waste of money if you have to pay for it yourself. If you get sick or injured, go to the emergency room and lie about your identity because the doctors don’t care about your health either. The health “care” industry is America is just that- an industry. And like all other industries, they care about one thing above all else:
To Whom It May Concern:
I am an African-American who is HIV positive, who has been doing Hemo-diaylsis for about eight months. My problem is that I’m being deprived of services of a clinic or facility, because I’m not liked, or my personality is sturdy. However, I don’t think it’s aggressive, I think my personality is assertive. Meaning that I will not be allowed to be treated with contempt or stereotypical biases. I was kicked out of Davita in Thornton, for taking the bandages off my needles, in which I just thought I was helping out, but I was automatically rejected from the facility, and I begged for forgiveness, and asked for another chance and they said no, I would no longer be allowed to dialysis at the clinic. Not knowing what to do I looked on the internet and found Fresenius. Meanwhile, I was receiving my dialysis through the emergency room, at sanatorium such as, St. Josephs, Presbyterian St. Lukes and Rose. In all these hospitals, they all went by the Potassium level in order to get me dialyzed, meaning if it was low, the hospital would not give you dialysis for that day, resulting in you coming back, sicker, due to the hospital’s protocol. Plus, I have to wait five to six hours in order to get dialyzed, but you have to get a room so the hospital will get paid. I personally think this is ridiculous. If I come to a facility every week to get dialyzed you would think that they find a way or a clinic for me to attend to, but that is not the case instead they give me a lecture about how I need to find a treatment center and when I explain I’ve been listed as a ‘trouble maker’ and way to opinionated. So clinics will not take me, as a result, I get dialysis from the hospitals, if a clinic would take me and treat me “well” I’ll be more than glad to attend a clinic, but most clinics are way to aggressive and just plain have no compassion for clients as well as employees. Plus, if you have a grievance with a unit it will and can be used against you, how do you think I got the label trouble maker?
Fresenius was a nice facility, but the employees were to busy singing and dancing to really be concerned with the patients. Plus, the Program Manager, Linda was always insidious when dealing with me. If I asked her to wash her hands she would, become cynical and explain she did wash her hands, yet I see a blue ink mark on her hand and she became red in the face. Also, she decided one day she was going to put the needles in my arm, so of course in a clinic I had no choice and I allowed her to put the needles in my arm. Well, as a result of Linda not paying attention and laughing with her fellow employee’s she infiltrated my arm. So as a result, I couldn’t dialysis that day or for the next coming week. So of course I made a grievance, because I felt that it was done on purpose and not done in a professional manner. After, making the complaint against the program manager I was labeled a trouble maker. Everyday I came to dialysis I was given new regulations and new obligations which if I think about it, that were small irrelevant rules, just to put her at ease, I abided to this simplistic request. However, it just seemed the more I followed this rules, the more she disrespected me or even worst give me a lecture, on my personality, that I was “angry” and I would constantly explain I wasn’t angry. However, I think because I listened to rap music, I was considered to be “angry”. So I would be asked every visit to talk to Linda in the facility to be talked to about my persona. Plus, she told me I could do three hours and I would be fine, then after all the rules she gave me she said ‘legally’ she can not allow me to do three hours, which at the same time I was signing a release form explaining that I was aware I was doing three hours. So as a result, of the strain I left the facility, thinking I rather go through the hospital then go through this facility. So I left and not thinking I would return. Yet, I get a call two days after the episode and the social worker is trying to persuade me back into the facility.
At present, I go through the emergency of the hospital in order to get dialysis, I realize it’s expensive and time consuming and more than 91% of African-Americans who dialysis supposedly go through the emergency of the hospital to get dialyzed. In which I think is another racist form to oppress Black Americans. So in going to hospital they as well give me a hard time, they want me to get a chronic unit, but the problem is, no unit will take me, so my options with treatment is limited. Yet, the control, or the illusion is the control is in the chronic units, yet these units are unsanitary, the technicians are abrasive, rude, rough, Kurt, confrontational. What’s even more fascinating is I’m the man who is HIV positive dealing with E.S.R.D. (Kidney Failure). There is no compassion or empathy for us as clients, and I’m most definitely not the only one who has problems with units in Colorado. Many others have ‘major’ problems with facilities, but don’t say anything, because it most definitely will be used against you, in either treatment, or how that technician treats you. Even the way the doctor treats you. So one who is a patient must be ‘passive’ and silent and to express that the needles in your arm hurt in anyway makes the technician feel scared or makes them nervous. Also, many of the technicians ill inform patients, resulting in confusion on the patient’s part. Also, the discrimination in units is rapid and swift although African-Americans make up a large percentage of Kidney failure, you rarely see any African-Americans if one in a chronic unit.
For Instance, as stated before I go through the hospital’s emergency room to get dialysis. Anyway, I met a young African-American women, whom was a patient at Davita in Littleton, they kicked her out as well with no warning no write up no protocol what’s so ever, and as a result for six months she’s been going through the emergency three times a week. Although, she said she didn’t mind, I really felt her pain, due to the fact I was in the same position, and her doctor is Mrs. Susan Babcock, who is nice but really doesn’t have any pull to get an individual into a clinic. She’s just a primary doctor who writes out prescriptions to patients, but to have her wait six months for a unit means Mrs. Babcock can’t really do anything if a unit decides they will or won’t allow you to get treatment. Finally, when I go the hospital’s they sometimes will not dialysis me because me blood work is good. For example, if my potassium is 6 or above they will dialysis me, even if my creatinine level is high and my BUN is high they still will not dialysis me. I think that is so “dumb’ if I’ve been coming to the hospital every week with the same diagnose then I should be able to get dialysis without lecture or confrontation. Plus, for the hospital to get paid with dialysis I have to get a room so the hospital will get paid this is, foolish to me because as soon as I get dialysis I feel good, and I don’t need a room, I only ‘need’ a room when I’m sick, really sick. Lastly, the hospital can be o.k. without the lectures of trying to get another unit, when no unit in Colorado will take me, for I’m non-compliant which means I’m too much of a trouble maker, to much into the details.
Signed,
Disenchanted Patient
Tags: blue cross, blue shield, horror stories