Too Pooped to Post!

Thanks for letting me rant.

I have had a rough couple of days, largely because of dealing with underhanded & lying people. I’m in a mood to crawl into a hole. The good news is that the remodel is framed, most of the electrical & heating are complete, and the plumbing is in progress. Best of all, the doors & windows come on Friday — an early Christmas present!

My husband & son rearranged stuff for the Christmas tree & our big nativity, so that’s in progress. They moved things around so I have a place where I can sleep soundly without causing undue stress.

But two packages sent to my daughter in Salem, one with the needlepoint ornaments I stitched for her this year, disappeared even though both the PO & Amazon say they were delivered. The ornaments can’t be replaced. The other package was a space heater, and not small.

As you know, I had a stroke a month ago. Part of what the hospital does is recommend certain kinds of i-home therapy for a period of time. In my case, these were physical, occupational, ad speech therapy and help from a social worker. Other services would be required if the evaluations say so. It took them 10 days to call both my doctor and me. We both thought that since I have Medicare & Medigap (because I see so many specialists) that all was well.

I set up the nurse eval & she put me down for a certain number of visits from the social worker & the therapists. I assumed they would do this; they wrote the recommendation. I assumed the hospital had given them my insurance info & the info about the PT I see for arthritis. None of this happened.

In spite of asking the nurse for follow-up calls from the others, I got none. hen yesterday when I had my less-than-useless PT evaluation, the therapist acted as if I had been a rattlesnake when I told her I had an outpatient PT appointment tomorrow. Today I had a nurse’s visit, and I asked again about the other visits. Their answer was that if I got outpatient service of any kind, they could not bill Medicare. I tried to point out how absurd this wa. I tried to point out that my Medigap insurance is supposed to cover this; but to no avail.

I called my insurance carrier, Blue Shield because they have competent people working for them. It took awhile, but I found out:

• Medicre can be billed separately for both in-home & outpatient services.
• My Medigap insurance covers all these services & more when Medicare doesn’t
• The home care provider did not pass the information given to them
• This home health provider is not approved by Medicare for several of the recommended services.

So I was lied to by the home health care people. But Blue Shield gave me the name of a company that does. I’m dealing with that tomorrow, but my afternoon was spent on this, and 4+ weeks post-stroke I may get the help I should have started in Noember. I’m stressed out & stitching, my go-to solution for stress I can’t do, because my hand-eye coordination is still bad.

I think I’ll read a mystery.